CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION
Professors James Oakes and Greg Downs
Fall 2012
Thursday 2-4
This is a reading course with an emphasis on surveying some of the most important
issues and major interpretations of the origins of the Civil War, the war itself, and
Reconstruction. As usual, we have attempted a balance of older “classic” works and more recent
scholarship.
The reading will be relatively heavy but the written assignments relatively light. Over
the course of the semester each student will write three reviews, five-pages each, of a book
related to the week’s readings but not on the reading list. Students will consult with one of the
professors for advice on the appropriate books. Everyone is expected to distribute their reviews
at least two full days prior to the weekly meeting, meaning no later than mid-day on Tuesday of
each week. Final grades will be based on the written work but participation in weekly
discussions will weigh heavily.
Please note that there is a reading assignment for the first week. Students are expected to
come prepared for the discussion. None of the book have been placed on reserve or ordered at a
bookstore, but they should all be available at libraries throughout the city and most can be
purchased used at online bookstores.
Sept. 1 CIVIL WAR REVISIONISM AND NEO-REVISIONISM
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Avery Craven, The Coming of the Civil War, 2d ed. (Chicago, 1957).
Dwight Lowell Dumond, The Antislavery Origins of the Civil War (1959; 1964).
Kenneth M. Stampp, “The Irrepressible Conflict,” in The Imperiled Union (New York,
1980), pp. 191-244.
Sept. 8 THE ANTISLAVERY ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL WAR
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Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, pp. 73-102, 301-317.
William Sewell, Ballots for Freedom
Sept. 15 THE PROSLAVERY AND THE ORIGINS OF THE CIVIL WAR
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William J. Cooper, Liberty and Slavery
Don Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, pp. 204-338.
Stephanie McCurry, Confederate Reckoning, pp. 1-84.
Sept. 22 THE CRISIS OF THE 1850’s
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David Potter, The Impending Crisis
Sept. 29 No classes scheduled
Oct. 6 SLAVERY AND ANTISLAVERY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
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Robin Blackburn, The American Crucible: Slavery, Emancipation, and Human Rights
Oct. 13 THE SECESSION CRISIS
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David Potter, Lincoln and his Party in the Secession Crisis, chap. 7, pp. 156-187.
Kenneth M. Stampp, And the War Came, chap. 9, pp. 165-203.
Russell McKlintock, Lincoln and the Decision for War
Oct. 20 THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION
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James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 308-857.
Oct. 27 WAR AND EMANCIPATION
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Mark Grimsley, The Hard Hand of War
James M. McPherson and Ira Berlin, "Who Freed the Slaves" and "Emancipation and Its
Meaning In American Life," Reconstruction, II (1994), 35-44.
James Oakes, Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States (mss.)
Nov. 10 RECONSTRUCTION: DUNNING AND HIS CRITICS
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William Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic
W.E.B. DuBois, “Reconstruction and Its Benefits,” American Historical Review 15:4
(July 1910): 781-799.
Kenneth Stamp, “The Tragic Legend of Reconstruction,” in Stampp and Litwack, eds.,
Reconstruction: An Anthology of Revisionist Writings (1969): 3-22.
Eric Foner, “Reconstruction Revisited,” Reviews in American History 10:4 (Dec. 1982):
82-100
Nov. 17 REVISIONISM
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Kenneth Stampp, The Era of Reconstruction
John Hope Franklin, Reconstruction after the Civil War
Tuesday, Nov. 22 POST-REVISIONISM (Thursday class day in CUNY calendar)
 Willie Lee Rose, Rehearsal for Reconstruction
 C. Vann Woodward, “Seeds of Failure in Radical Race Policy,” in Harold Hyman, ed.,
New Frontiers of American Reconstruction (1966): 125-147. Also by same title in
American Philosophical Society Proceedings 110 (1966): 1-9.
 Michael Les Benedict, “Preserving the Constitution: The Conservative Basis of Radical
Reconstruction,” Journal of American History 61:1 (June 1974): 65-90.
Nov. 24 Thanksgiving
Dec. 1 THE FONER SYNTHESIS
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Eric Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution
Dec 8 BEYOND FONER
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Kate Masur, An Example for All the Land: Emancipation and the Struggle for Equality in
Washington, D.C. (2010)
Laura Edwards, “Marriage, Households, and the Politics of Reconstruction in North
Carolina,” in Gilmore, Dailey, and Simon, eds., Jumpin’ Jim Crow (2000) 7-27.
Elliott West, “Reconstructing Race,” Western Historical Quarterly XXXIV:1 (Spring
2003): 7-26
Steven Hahn, “Class and State in Postemancipation Societies: Southern Planters in
Comparative Perspective,” American Historical Review 95:1 (Feb. 1990): 75-98
Sven Beckert, “Democracy and Its Discontents: Contesting Suffrage Rights in Gilded
Age New York,” Past and Present (Feb. 2002): 114-155.
Edward Ayers, “Exporting Reconstruction,” in Ayers, What Caused the Civil War?
(2005): 145-166.