"Eric Foner has put together this terrible story with greater cogency and power, I believe, than has been brought to the subject heretofore. He avoids ideological skids, freeloading hindsight, and mirages of certitude..... Foner's book brings to distinguished fruition one great cycle of Reconstruction historiography." – New York Review of Books
"A heroic synthesis that should dominate the field-much like C. Vann Woodward's interpretation of the new South. It gives nearly equal time to all the protagonists in the Reconstruction drama and recognizes how inextricably economic, political, social, and ideological issues are bound." – Washington Post Book World
"Foner's book brings to distinguished fruition one great cycle of Reconstruction historiography." – New York Review of Books
"A remarkable clarity is one of the many beauties of this book that dwells on so many conflicts and ambiguities." – Boston Globe