Second Founding: New York City, Reconstruction, and the Making of American Democracy

At the close of the Civil War, Americans found themselves drawn into a new conflict, one in which the basic shape of the nation's government had to be rethought and new rules for the democratic game had to be established. In this superb new study, David Quigley argues that New York City's politics and politicians lay at the heart of Reconstruction's intense, conflicted drama. In ways that we understand all too well today, New York history became national history.

The establishment of a …