Fractured Freedoms - (Conflicting Worlds: New Dimensions of the American Civil War) by David T Ballantyne (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

David T. Ballantyne's Fractured Freedoms is a riveting history of central Louisiana from the 1860s to the 1890s, focusing on majority-Black Rapides Parish during Reconstruction. Using the region as a case study, Ballantyne reveals what is, in part, a rural Reconstruction success story, emphasizing the resilience of Black politics and the persistence of significant divisions among white residents that allowed the Republican Party to gain and maintain power there. It was only with the collapse of state-level Republican power in 1877 that Democratic forces in the parish were able to dismantle local Republican political control and gradually constrict Black freedoms.

Review Quotes

"A highly anticipated and important contribution to the scholarship on this tumultuous and contentious period in U.S. history. David T. Ballantyne offers original insights and bold conclusions that deserve careful consideration."--John C. Rodrigue, author of Freedom's Crescent: The Civil War and the Destruction of Slavery in the Lower Mississippi Valley

"In Fractured Freedoms, David T. Ballantyne has given us a thought-provoking reinterpretation of Reconstruction. Focusing on Rapides Parish in the geographic center of Louisiana, he shows how Reconstruction was not an inevitable failure but rather a political experiment--in biracial democracy, no less--that might have transformed the South. Deeply researched and elegantly written, this is a compelling and moving story."--Adam Fairclough, author of Bulldozed and Betrayed: Louisiana and the Stolen Elections of 1876

"In this deeply researched study of central Louisiana, David T. Ballantyne reminds us of Reconstruction's many successes--and its ongoing importance to American political history in the twenty-first century. A must-read for all scholars of Reconstruction."--Carole Emberton, author of Beyond Redemption: Race, Violence, and the American South after the Civil War

"Louisiana was at the heart of Reconstruction, and Rapides Parish and Alexandria on the Red River were at the heart of Louisiana. In Fractured Freedoms, David T. Ballantyne has thoroughly and carefully untangled the story of shifting political alignments, halting efforts toward interracial democracy, and the powerful forces arrayed against those efforts."--Bruce E. Baker, coeditor of Remembering Reconstruction: Struggles over the Meaning of America's Most Turbulent Era

About the Author

David T. Ballantyne is a senior lecturer in American history at Keele University and the author of New Politics in the Old South: Ernest F. Hollings in the Civil Rights Era.