{"product_id":"the-failed-promise-reconstruction-frederick-douglass-and-the-impeachment-of-andrew-johnson","title":"The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson by Robert S. Levine","description":"\u003cp\u003eWhen Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln's assassination, the country was on the precipice of radical change. Johnson, seemingly more progressive than Lincoln, looked like the ideal person to lead the country. He had already cast himself as a \"Moses\" for the Black community, and African Americans were optimistic that he would pursue aggressive federal policies for Black equality.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDespite this early promise, Frederick Douglass, the country's most influential Black leader, soon grew disillusioned with Johnson's policies and increasingly doubted the president was sincere in supporting Black citizenship. In a dramatic and pivotal meeting between Johnson and a Black delegation at the White House, the president and Douglass came to verbal blows over the course of Reconstruction.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs he lectured across the country, Douglass continued to attack Johnson's policies, while raising questions about the Radical Republicans' hesitancy to grant African Americans the vote. Johnson meanwhile kept his eye on Douglass, eventually making a surprising effort to appoint him to a key position in his administration.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLevine grippingly portrays the conflicts that brought Douglass and the wider Black community to reject Johnson and call for a guilty verdict in his impeachment trial. He brings fresh insight by turning to letters between Douglass and his sons, speeches by Douglass and other major Black figures like Frances E. W. Harper, and articles and letters in the \u003cem\u003eChristian Recorder\u003c\/em\u003e, the most important African American newspaper of the time. In counterpointing the lives and careers of Douglass and Johnson, Levine offers a distinctive vision of the lost promise and dire failure of Reconstruction, the effects of which still reverberate today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eExcellent, opinionated...Outstanding as both a biography and a work of Reconstruction-era history.\u003cstrong\u003e-- \"Kirkus Reviews (starred)\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this engrossing new book, Robert S. Levine has penned a nuanced and detailed study of the 'hopes and frustrations of Reconstruction' during Andrew Johnson's presidency. While focusing on the relationship between Johnson and Frederick Douglass, the author also includes the views of numerous African American writers who witnessed Johnson's transformation from self-styled 'Moses to Black People' to betrayer of Reconstruction. \u003cem\u003eThe Failed Promise\u003c\/em\u003e is a lesson for our times as we continue to confront our nation's unfulfilled promise of racial equality.\u003cstrong\u003e--Henry Louis Gates, Jr., author of Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn this brilliantly conceived, immensely original, and beautifully written book, Robert Levine tells a new story of Reconstruction by focusing on the radically different visions of Andrew Johnson and Frederick Douglass along with other black leaders. Far more than a dual biography, \u003cem\u003eThe Failed Promise\u003c\/em\u003e clarifies the hopes and tragedies of the era in ways that nothing else has, while also informing efforts to reconstruct the U.S. today. It should be required reading.\u003cstrong\u003e--John Stauffer, co-author of Picturing Frederick Douglass: An Illustrated Biography of the Nineteenth-Century's Most Photographed American\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eRobert S. Levine\u003c\/strong\u003e (Ph.D. Stanford; General Editor and Editor, 1820-1865) is Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is the author of \u003cem\u003eConspiracy and Romance: Studies in Brockden Brown, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Melville; Martin Delany, Frederick Douglass, and the Politics of Representative Identity; Dislocating Race and Nation: Episodes in Nineteenth-Century American Literary Nationalism; The Lives of Frederick Douglas; Race, Transnationalism, and Nineteenth-Century American Literary Studies;\u003c\/em\u003e and (upcoming from Norton) \u003cem\u003eThe Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson\u003c\/em\u003e. He has edited a number of books, including \u003cem\u003eThe New Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville\u003c\/em\u003e and Norton Critical Editions of Hawthorne's \u003cem\u003eThe House of the Seven Gables\u003c\/em\u003e and Melville's \u003cem\u003ePierre\u003c\/em\u003e. Levine has received fellowships from the NEH and the Guggenheim Foundation. In 2014 the American Literature Section of the MLA awarded him the Hubbell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in American Literary Studies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W. W. Norton \u0026 Company","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45762417950906,"sku":"9781324004752","price":26.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0444\/2213\/5968\/files\/imageloader_9913b3ce-678d-40f9-b82d-ddf0e291e3ce.jpg?v=1775661405","url":"https:\/\/naturenurture.shop\/products\/the-failed-promise-reconstruction-frederick-douglass-and-the-impeachment-of-andrew-johnson","provider":"nature+nurture","version":"1.0","type":"link"}