The Great Task Remaining Before Us: Reconstruction As America's Continuing Civil War

Through informative case studies, this illuminating book remaps considerations of the Civil War and Reconstruction era by charting the ways in which the needs, interests, and experiences of going to war, fighting it, and making sense of it informed and directed politics, public life, social change, and cultural memory after the war's end. In doing so, it shows that the wardid not actually end with Lee's surrenderat Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination in Washington. As the contributors show, major issues remained, including defining freedom; rebuilding the South; integrating women and blacks into postwar society, culture, and polities; deciding the place of the military in public life; demobilizing or redeploying soldiers; organizing anew party system; and determining the scope and meanings of union.

Paul A. Cimbala is Professor of History at Fordham University and editor of the Press's series The North's Civil War and Reconstructing America.

Randall M. Miller is Professor of History and holder of the William Dirk Warren Sesquicentennial Chair at Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia.