The republic for which it stands
by White, Richard · first published 2017
63% recommend38% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Covers Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, drawing parallels to modern politics like political division and income inequality; recommended for readers wanting historical context on current American politics.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"Acclaimed historian Richard White offers a fresh and integrated interpretation of Reconstruction and the Gilded Age as the seedbed of modern America. At the end of the Civil War the leaders and citizens of the victorious North envisioned the country's future as a free-labor republic, with a homogenous citizenry, both black and white. The South and West were to be reconstructed in the image of the North. Thirty years later Americans occupied an unimagined world. The unity that the Civil War supposedly secured had proved ephemeral. The country was larger, richer, and more extensive, but also mo
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…Robert E Lee Elementary. Alexandria desegregated in 1966 and I went to school two blocks down the street instead of across town. For more on how uneven progress in rights has been I highly recommend "The Republic for Which It Stands - The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896" by Richard White. [0] It's a weighty tome but helped me see through a lot of the myth-making about American Democracy. Also, at…
on “University of Florida bars professors from testifying in a voting rights case” ↗I recommend reading The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age [1] if you'd like some hope. All of this has happened before and all of this will happen again. It's mostly just part of the cycle between…
on “How to Beat Silicon Valley Competitors (2018)” ↗…trite. There are culture wars in every civilization and community on earth, throughout history, and they're not exclusively well organized psyops. I'd encourage the author to read Richard White's The Republic For Which It Stands, which I think the author would find a lot of common ground with White, but one thing that is particularly clarifying is in our current 21st century gilded age, just how much was similar 130 years ago…
on “The Anti-Palantir Manifesto” ↗…great way to frame the current political climate and several crucial periods in American history. The author didn't exactly phrase it that way (he is a historian not an economist) but I'd recommend The Republic for Which It Stands by Richard White from the Oxford History of the United States series. He starts out the acknowledgments "I have written a book about a time of rapid and disorienting change and failed politics, and now…
on “The World Economy Runs on GPS. It Needs a Backup Plan” ↗If anyone honestly feels this way, I invite them to read The Republic for Which It Stands [1] by Richard White which is about the post-Civil War era and the Gilded Age. Everything from the political division to the growing income inequality looked a lot like today - worse even! - and the author…
on “Bed Bath and Beyond Files for Bankruptcy” ↗The Republic for Which It Stands - The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896 by Richard White
on “Fuck Your Miracle Year” ↗Well, for what it's worth, "Battle Cry of Freedom" is only the sixth volume in the Oxford History of the United States. The following volume, "The Republic for Which It Stands" by Richard White, covers the 30-year period following the war.
on “Coming to grips with the American Civil War” ↗I’m reading William Vollmann’s Imperial (a book about the eponymous county in CA) , Richard White’s “The Republic for Which it Stands” (a history of reconstruction and the gilded age), and Paul Starr’s “Social Transformation of American Medicine”.
on “Ask HN: What are you reading?” ↗