Beyond Redemption Summary

One question remained on the minds of those involved with the American Civil War: how can you rebuild a nation that was once hellbent on fighting one another? The idea of Reconstruction was created in hopes of doing just that. However, Reconstruction itself was not cut and dry. In fact, there were so many differing opinions that Reconstruction could not be categorized by any particular main theme. In Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South after the Civil War, Carole Emberton--assistant professor of history at the University of Buffalo--attempts to define the main ideologies surrounding the post-Civil War era by bringing to light how a thirst for violence provided the foundation for the “making of manhood, freedom, and citizenship in the aftermath of one of the most destructive wars” (2). The definition of Reconstruction would come to mean something different to each majority group in the United States, this included northerners, white southerners, and newly freedmen. Each group would use …show more content…
This work provides insight into how one would go about achieving the highest ideals of masculinity and the means of securing one’s political and social status in the post-Civil War America. Emberton solidifies the idea of martial manhood in her discussion on the violence that permeated the lives of those struggling to rebuild after the devastation of war. She best summarizes what the study of not only Reconstruction, but history itself, plainly as “an ongoing process, never complete, always imperfect, and certainly not easy” (216). Beyond Redemption deserves recognition and provides valuable information to scholars of life following the Civil