From the "preeminent historian of Reconstruction" (New York Times Book Review), a newly updated edition of the prize-winning classic work on the post-Civil War period which shaped modern America, with a new introduction from the author. Eric Foner's "masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history" (New Republic) redefined how the post-Civil War period was viewed. Reconstruction chronicles the way in which Americans—black and white—responded to the unprecedented changes unleashed by the war and the end of slavery. It addresses the ways in which the emancipated slaves' quest for economic autonomy and equal citizenship shaped the political agenda of Reconstruction; the remodeling of Southern society and the place of planters, merchants, and small farmers within it; the evolution of racial attitudes and patterns of race relations; and the emergence of a national state possessing vastly expanded authority and committed, for a time, to the principle of equal rights for all Americans. This "smart book of enormous strengths" (Boston Globe) remains the standard work on the wrenching post-Civil War period—an era whose legacy still reverberates in the United States today.

George Joy Titler came to Harlan County, Kentucky, in 1937 to help the United Mine Workers of America labor union organize Harlan County's miners. For decades, the county's coal operators bitterly and violently resisted the UMWA's repeated organizing efforts in this remote southeastern Kentucky region. The coal operators' influence and power permeated the county's government and justice system, and stretched its reach to the Governor's office in Frankfort. The operators paid scores of sheriff deputies to intimidate, threaten, and kill organizers or miners who challenged their economic grip on the county. After four tumultous years, the UMWA organizers secured for Harlan's miners a fair contract. In this book, Titler recounts the history of Harlan County's labor troubles, and gives a first-hand account of his four harrowing years in "Bloody Harlan," where he and his friends survived car bombings, hotel bombings, machine gun ambushes, and other assasination attempts. His bravery and service on behalf of the miners and their families earned him a monacre befitting his personality: the "Bull of Harlan."