From Reconstruction To Integration

Selected from the 1992 summer school of the Institute of Contemporary British History, 20 essays delve into why Britain, so quickly off the mark after World War II, has turned out to be among the last to join a unified Europe, and still remains a semi-detached member. They are arranged in sections on Britain's early vision of a united Europe, her search for a role from 1956 to 1973, and the awkward and often tense marriage since then. Distributed in the US by St. Martin's Press. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

According to William Gillette, recent reinterpretation of Reconstruction by revisionist historians has often tended to overemphasize idealistic motivations at the expense of assessing concrete achievements of the era. Thus, he maintains, the failure of both the purpose and the promise of Reconstruction has not been deeply enough analyzed. Retreat from Reconstruction is the first and most comprehensive analysis yet published on the course of the development, decline, and disintegration of Reconstruction during the decade of the 1870s. Gillette sets forth the idea that these years provided the true test of the effectiveness of Reconstruction. By using the primary sources to back up and amplify his premise, he offers a detailed, thoroughly convincing study of Reconstruction and a significant interpretation of why the political programs of the Republicans ended in failure. Focusing on Reconstruction as national policy and how it was made and administered, Gillette’s study interweaves local developments in the South with political developments in the North that resulted in the withdrawal of support of that policy. His broadly based work includes an examination of federal election enforcement in the South, the southern policies of the Grant and Hayes administrations, the presidential elections of 1872 and 1876, the congressional election of 1874, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875. In addition to political developments, Gillette touches on the social, economic, intellectual, educational, and racial facets of Reconstruction; and by demonstrating how they bore on the political processes of the era, he deepens our understanding of a crucial but controversial period in American history and the workings of the American political system.

Anglo-German relations since 1945 have been generally cordial but subject to bouts of acute tension. This volume by leading historians from both countries examines major political issues and broader contacts between the two societies. It suggests that British perceptions have remained coloured by fears of German dominance, aggravated by the success of the Federal Republic and the relative decline of Britain in the post-war period.

Volume II considers the history of the European Union from an inside-out perspective, focusing on the internal developments that shaped the European integration process. Taking an innovative, thematic approach, this volume will be of interest to students and researchers of European integration.

Twenty-five scholars from various disciplines analyze and explain to the reader many of the complexities of the research output of Alan S. Milward: the role of the modern European nation-state in the social, economic and political development of Europe since the 19th century; the overall social and economic impact of the two world wars; the reconstruction of Western Europe; the rationale behind the Marshall Plan and its long-term consequences; and the multidisciplinary study of the process of the political and economic integration of Europe in a long-term perspective.and the essence of his pioneering contribution to reaching a better understanding of European economic and political history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

This book examines the role of multiethnic armies in post-conflict reconstruction, and demonstrates how they can promote peacebuilding efforts. The author challenges the assumption that multiethnic composition leads to weakness of the military, and shows how a multiethnic army is frequently the impetus for peacemaking in multiethnic societies. Three case studies (Nigeria, Lebanon and Bosnia-Herzegovina) determine that rather than external factors, it is the internal structures that make or break the military institution in a socially challenging environment. The book finds that where the political will is present, the multiethnic military can become a symbol of reconciliation and coexistence. Furthermore, it shows that the military as a professional identity can supersede ethnic considerations and thus facilitates cooperation within the armed forces despite a hostile post-conflict setting. In this, the book challenges widespread theories about ethnic identities and puts professional identities on an equal footing with them. The book will be of great interest to students of military studies, ethnic conflict, conflict studies and peacebuilding, and IR in general Florence Gaub is a Researcher and Lecturer at the NATO Defence College in Rome. She holds a PhD in International Politics from Humboldt University, Berlin.

The only comprehensive bibliography on Reconstruction, this book provides the definitive guide to literature published from 1877 to 1998. In over 2,900 entries, the work covers a broad range of topics including politics, agriculture, labor, religion, education, race relations, law, family, gender studies, and local history. It encompasses the years of the Civil War through the conclusion of the 1876 election and the end of the federal government's official role in reforming the postwar South and protecting the rights of Black citizens. In detailed annotations, the book covers a range of literature from scholarly and popular studies to published memoirs, letters and documents, as well as reference sources and teaching tools. The issues of Reconstruction—civil rights, states' rights and federal-state relations, racism, nationalism, government aid to individuals—continue to be relevant today, and the literature on Reconstruction is large. This book provides a systematic and comprehensive bibliographic guide to that literature. It is organized by topics and geographical regions and states, thereby emphasizing the local diversity in the South. In addition to a variety of literature, it covers the relevant Supreme Court cases through 1883, provides full citations to federal acts and cases cited, and includes the texts of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. The book will be useful to scholars and students researching a wide range of topics in Southern history, constitutional history, and national politics in post Civil War United States.

Thirty years after the publication of John Hope Franklin’s influential interpretative essay Reconstruction: After the Civil War, ten distinguished scholars have contributed to a new appraisal of Reconstruction scholarship. Recognizing Professor Franklin’s major contributions to the study of the Reconstruction era, their work of analysis and review has been dedicated to him. Although most of the contributors studied with John Hope Franklin, The Facts of Reconstruction is not a festschrift, at least not the conventional sense. The book does not offer a comprehensive assessment of Franklin’s remarkably wide-ranging work in southern and Afro-American history, but instead engages his influential interpretation of Reconstruction. The essays in The Facts of Reconstruction focus upon questions raised in Reconstruction: After the Civil War. Was southern white intransigence the decisive influence in Presidential Reconstruction? What as the role of violence in southern “redemption”? How successful were the educational experiments of the Reconstruction era? Why did southern Republicans fail to build an effective coalition capable of surviving the pressure of racism? In addition, several essays discuss questions not directly addressed in Franklin’s book, since his pathbreaking work indirectly stimulated study in a variety of new areas. For example, contributors to The Facts of Reconstruction examine the ante-bellum origins of Reconstruction, evaluate the development of racial segregation during the late nineteenth century, analyze the political and legal ideas behind the Reconstruction debates, and study the prospering minority among blacks. Representing a variety of perspectives, the authors have sought to follow John Hope Franklin’s admonition that Reconstruction should not be used as “a mirror of ourselves.” If they have succeeded, this book in honor of a profound scholar and inspiring teacher will provoke new discussion about “the facts of Reconstruction.”