Highly recommended.................

As a history major, I am sort of embarrassed by the gaps in my knowledge.  The Reconstruction era and the fate of the freed slaves post-Appomattox is an unhappy ugly chapter in American history.  As Chernow tells it, there is clearly a national amnesia about that era.  If I learned about it in school, well, I didn't.

At 959 pages, Chernow might have benefited from a stronger editor.  Still, he tells a tale crucial to the understanding of the United States of America.