The Rest Is History
Goalhanger
History
Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise
by Higher Ground Audio
Today: #87 in History on our combined chart.
Chart positions today
If you like Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise, try…
The Team House
dee takos
World War II with Tom Hanks
The HISTORY Channel | Back Pocket Studios | Audacy
Lore
Aaron Mahnke
American Scandal
Audible
Throughline
NPR
Ranking history
History builds daily. We started tracking this show on the History chart recently, so the trend line appears after a second day of data.
View as table
| Date | Apple Podcasts |
|---|---|
| Oct 1 | #76 |
About the show
Reconstruction begins where, for most Americans, the story of the Civil War ends: The North is victorious and slavery is abolished. But what happened next was one of the most important decades in American history, a moment when our country grappled with its original sin and imagined — and briefly enacted — a more perfect union.
Drawing from archives, letters, diaries, court records, eyewitness testimonies and some of America’s most accomplished scholars and storytellers, Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise explores this unprecedented historical moment in rich, kaleidoscopic detail. The series unpacks a time when a determined band of reformers attempted to radically reimagine American society — from the Constitution to the roots of its economy to the very nature of citizenship itself.
Reconstruction was a time when Americans struggled over fundamental questions about our country. Who gets to be a citizen? Who has the right to vote? Who can own property? In short, who belongs? Reconstruction: The Unfinished Promise explores what America might have looked like if Reconstruction had truly succeeded, and how the ultimate backlash to Reconstruction prevented our country from becoming a truly multiracial democracy.
Guiding us through this extraordinary moment in American history is best-selling author and host of Revisionist History Malcolm Gladwell. He’ll have help from luminaries, historians, and storytellers such as President Barack Obama, Jelani Cobb, Wyatt Cenac, David Blight, Kai Wright, Kellie Carter Jackson, Ashley C. Ford, Manisha Sinha, Kidada Williams, and Eric Foner. This is a series about why America has yet to make good on the promise of Reconstruction, and how it still might.
An Audible Original in partnership with History Channel. Produced by Higher Ground and Pushkin Industries.
Latest episodes
-
The Forever Culture Wars
July 16, 2026 · 40 minComedian Wyatt Cenac considers how movies, cartoons, and even theme park rides have shaped our cultural memory of Reconstruction. Plus, President Obama joins Malcolm to discuss why our current world owes everything to this era and how…
-
Peace Among The Whites
July 9, 2026 · 22 minFollowing one of the most contentious presidential elections in US history, representatives of the North and South met in a posh Washington DC hotel. The result of their backdoor dealings spelled the end of progressive efforts at…
-
A History of Democracy, Revised
July 9, 2026 · 29 minSoon after Reconstruction began to wind down, American historians wrote the era off as a failure. But that narrative didn’t emerge by accident — it was engineered by a celebrated historian named William Dunning, whose denigration of Black…
-
Truth Without Reconciliation
July 2, 2026 · 39 minAs Black citizens exercised newly won rights in America, a vigilante backlash shook the South. In response, Congress summoned more than 500 witnesses to testify about the violence they had experienced. Historian Kidada Williams takes us…
-
The Betrayal of Frederick Douglass
July 2, 2026 · 42 minIn 1874, with emancipation and Black citizenship finally written into the Constitution, Frederick Douglass set his sights on the next frontier of freedom: economic self-reliance. But in this pursuit, he was ensnared in a disastrous…
-
Love and Sacrifice
June 25, 2026 · 37 minIn 1865, Rebecca Primus left the comfort of her Northern home to help establish a school in the South. She exchanged intimate, sometimes romantic letters with her friend Addie Brown. Their correspondence offers a window into a remarkable…
-
Nine Black Men
June 25, 2026 · 34 minAlabama State University is one of America's earliest historically Black colleges. Historian Kellie Carter Jackson shares the institution’s hidden origins. Founded during Reconstruction by nine formerly enslaved men, the story reveals a…
-
Prologue: Malcolm Gladwell and President Obama
June 18, 2026 · 18 minMalcolm Gladwell and President Barack Obama introduce us to one of the most chaotic, complicated, and fascinating times in American history, revealing why Reconstruction still defines our country today. See Privacy Policy at…