The famously laconic politician managed to leave Washington in better shape than he found it, including the rare feat of reducing the size of the federal budget. Annette Gordon-Reed recommends‘Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880,’ by W.E.B. Du BoisImage“The book recounts the efforts to remake American society in the wake of the Civil War operating on the premise that African Americans are equal citizens of the United States. Du Bois wrote to counteract historians and others who had portrayed the effort as doomed by Black inferiority. There has been no comparable burst of creative statecraft since the Cold War ended three decades ago, and President Trump did much to weaken the institutions and relationships that have underpinned U.S. foreign policy for three-quarters of a century.

Source: New York Times December 20, 2020 09:56 UTC