David S. Reynolds | The New York Review of Books

Grant vs. the Klan

New books reconsider how Ulysses S. Grant became a forceful defender of the rights of African Americans after the Civil War.

Soldier of Destiny: Slavery, Secession, and the Redemption of Ulysses S. Grant

by John Reeves

Klan War: Ulysses S. Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction

by Fergus M. Bordewich

October 17, 2024 issue

‘A Fiendish Fascination’

The representation of Jews in antebellum popular culture reveals that many Americans found them both cartoonishly villainous and enticingly exotic.

Sensationalism and the Jew in Antebellum American Literature

by David Anthony

February 22, 2024 issue

The Remarkable Grimkes

A new multigenerational history of the abolitionist Grimke family is a sobering reminder of the complicated nature of race relations in America after the Civil War.

The Grimkes: The Legacy of Slavery in an American Family

by Kerri K. Greenidge

March 9, 2023 issue

Throngs of Unseen People

In the Houses of Their Dead, Terry Alford’s history of spiritualism during the Civil War era, suggests an unexpected link between the Lincoln family and that of John Wilkes Booth.

In the Houses of Their Dead: The Lincolns, the Booths, and the Spirits

by Terry Alford

October 6, 2022 issue

In the Shadow of Slavery

Merging memoir, travelogue, and history, Clint Smith evokes the horrors of slavery.

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

by Clint Smith

February 24, 2022 issue

He Was No Moses

While he opposed slavery and southern secession early in his career, as president Andrew Johnson turned out to be an unsightly bigot.

The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

by Robert S. Levine

The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation

by Brenda Wineapple

December 16, 2021 issue

When Slaves Fled to Mexico

A new book tells the forgotten story of fugitive slaves who found freedom south of the border.

South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War

by Alice L. Baumgartner

May 13, 2021 issue

I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do…

Polygamy: An Early American History

by Sarah M.S. Pearsall

April 9, 2020 issue

The Popery Panic

Escaped Nuns: True Womanhood and the Campaign Against Convents in Antebellum America

by Cassandra L. Yacovazzi

Elizabeth Seton: American Saint

by Catherine O’Donnell

April 18, 2019 issue

Fine Specimens

‘The Afterlives of Specimens: Science, Mourning, and Whitman’s Civil War’ by Lindsay Tuggle

The Afterlives of Specimens: Science, Mourning, and Whitman’s Civil War

by Lindsay Tuggle

Drum-Taps: The Complete 1865 Edition

by Walt Whitman, edited by Lawrence Kramer

March 22, 2018 issue

The Slave Owners’ Foreign Policy

This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy

by Matthew Karp

June 22, 2017 issue

Our Ruinous Betrayal of Indians and Black Americans

Bind Us Apart: How Enlightened Americans Invented Racial Segregation

by Nicholas Guyatt

December 22, 2016 issue

The Commander of Civil War History

Embattled Rebel: Jefferson Davis as Commander in Chief

by James M. McPherson

The War That Forged a Nation: Why the Civil War Still Matters

by James M. McPherson

November 19, 2015 issue

An Exchange on John Brown

May 9, 2013 issue

Letter

John Stauffer

Were Hawthorne’s Politics ‘Disgraceful’?

July 11, 2013 issue

Judging the Age of Jackson: An Exchange

July 2, 2009 issue

The Concise Whitman

November 3, 2005 issue

Loading the Canon

January 19, 1989 issue