An outsider's perspective of the Reconstruction

The benefit that the majority of American students in our class have regarding our final exam is that they have been been taught American history before, and therefore have a predisposition of the time period. Being a British student I have never studied in detail American history. As I read the book I was learning for the first time about the America post Civil War. I think that not knowing anything about Reconstruction before reading the book has helped me with my paper. I was able to read the book without any previous knowledge of the subject meaning I was able to only use the information presented to me by Eric Foner to write my paper. I would go on to state my opinion of the book but we have another couple of days until they are due in! But I will conclude by saying that his book contains a variety of context regarding the Reconstruction that is accessible to readers with little or much historical background on the matter at hand.