From the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson to the Wall Street wars of railroad kingpins to the triumph of America's first black congressmen, the saga of the Gilded Age and Reconstruction comes to life through the words of those who lived it. Historian T. J. Stiles weaves these powerful first-person accounts together with his own fast-moving narrative, creating a gripping history of the critical twelve years that followed the Civil War.

This is the story of America's first civil rights revolution, as seen in the red-clay streets of one Southern town and in the marble halls on Capitol Hill...the ruthless career of robber baron Jay Gould, and the empire-building of Andrew Carnegie...and massive political corruption, told by those who plotted in smoke-filled rooms.

Robber Barons and Radicals captures the great American tragedy - how the hope and freedom born in the Civil War struggled into life, triumphed, and perished, not to rise for another century.