Memes of Production

This is abuse of authority and police brutality 😭

~~more please~~

It's interesting, but on the subjects of Grant and Sherman in particular the text goes out of its way to paint them as anti-Reconstruction or Reconstruction-skeptical, even when the immediately preceding or succeeding sentence in the original text directly contradicts it.

Sherman's opinions changed with time, and radically so. Not that Sherman in particular isn't chalk-full of horrific opinions even at the latest possible point, mind, only that it's not entirely fair to paint him, as one popular history put him, as the original "unreconstructed rebel" when his entire trajectory was increasingly pro-African-American even through a period when white Americans as a whole began to lose their stomach for the fight for equality.

But Grant in particular is a sore point for me, since Grant went far out of his way to support racial equality, even though his strong support for civil rights literally split 'his' party in two. He may not have been the most radical Republican, but he also was far from lukewarm on equal civil rights or a simple opportunist.

Nevertheless, it certainly cites a wide variety of primary sources and makes otherwise compelling arguments. The only downside of a book is that picking the author's mind on specific points is much harder. :p