Malcolm Gladwell and President Barack Obama introduce us to one of the most chaotic,complicated, and fascinating times in American history, revealing why Reconstruction stilldefines our country today.Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise on Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts.Reconstruction begins where, for most Americans, the story of the Civil War ends: The North isvictorious and slavery is abolished. But what happened next was one of the most importantdecades in American...
Malcolm Gladwell and President Barack Obama introduce us to one of the most chaotic,
complicated, and fascinating times in American history, revealing why Reconstruction still
defines our country today.
Listen to Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise on Audible, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Reconstruction begins where, for most Americans, the story of the Civil War ends: The North is
victorious and slavery is abolished. But what happened next was one of the most important
decades in American history, a moment when our country grappled with its original sin and
imagined — and briefly enacted — a more perfect union.
Drawing from archives, letters, diaries, court records, eyewitness testimonies and some of
America’s most accomplished scholars and storytellers, Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise
explores this unprecedented historical moment in rich, kaleidoscopic detail. The series unpacks a
time when a determined band of reformers attempted to radically reimagine American society —
from the Constitution to the roots of its economy to the very nature of citizenship itself.
Reconstruction was a time when Americans struggled over fundamental questions about our
country. Who gets to be a citizen? Who has the right to vote? Who can own property? In short,
who belongs? Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise explores what America might have
looked like if Reconstruction had truly succeeded, and how the ultimate backlash to
Reconstruction prevented our country from becoming a truly multiracial democracy.
Guiding us through this extraordinary moment in American history is best-selling author and
host of Revisionist History Malcolm Gladwell. He’ll have help from luminaries, historians, and
storytellers such as President Barack Obama, Jelani Cobb, Wyatt Cenac, David Blight, Kai
Wright, Kellie Carter Jackson, Ashley C. Ford, Manisha Sinha, Kidada Williams, and Eric Foner.
This is a series about why America has yet to make good on the promise of Reconstruction, and
how it still might.
An Audible Original in partnership with History Channel. Produced by Higher Ground and
Pushkin Industries.
