Chronicles how Americans responded to the changes unleashed by the Civil War and the end of slavery.

Includes index. Includes maps of: Major Physical and Cash Crop Regions of the South, 1860; Slave Population, 1860; Barrow Plantation in 1860 and 1881.

The world the war made --Rehearsals for reconstruction -- The meaning of freedom -- Ambiguities of free labor -- The failure of presidential reconstruction -- The making of radical reconstruction -- Blueprints for a republican South -- Reconstruction: political and economic -- The challenge of enforcement -- The reconstruction of the North -- The politics of depression -- Redemption and after.