Adaptation and transformation in communist and post-communist systems Book

History repeats itself, and the history the United States is repeating here in the early 21st Century is the period from 1865 to 1900 that historians often refer to as the Gilded Age. All the rights and freedoms promised by Abraham Lincoln were thrown into the dustbin of history by the alleged losers of the Civil War. Corporations became the beneficiaries of the war's only victories (the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments) and the reaper of America's new industrial fortunes at the expense of the people who fought, suffered and died in the war. It was an Age of Betrayal and Jack Beatty goes into great historical detail in describing how it unfolded and how it set the stage for the New Deal era.

The Gilded Age has always been a mystery to me, so this book was the missing puzzle piece between the Civil War and the New Deal. It is a terribly depressing tale, but one that every American should know if they wish to understand what happened after Lincoln died and what's going on now here in 2013. The only reason it doesn't get five stars is because it is an intense book, written with an academic level that sometimes lost me in its diction and paragraph structure. Beatty is a very accomplished writer, and his command of the subject is absolute within the pages, but sometimes I felt lost amid the details and names. But the book is filled with too much historical knowledge to put down. It's a fascinating read. His humanitarian perspective is refreshing in a world dominated by corporate propaganda, and after reading this book, you know where the roots of corporate oligarchy in America begin.