Dale Kretz is an award-winning historian of emancipation and the American state. His work explores how systems of power develop in conflict with the unyielding struggles of working people, whose defiance insists that history is not finished, that its weight can still be shifted.
“Rarely does a book make an original and seminal contribution to a well-worn field, the history of emancipation. Dale Kretz’s Administering Freedom, deservedly awarded the Civil War and Reconstruction book prize by the Organization of American Historians, is one such book.”
— Manisha Sinha, James L. and Shirley A. Draper Chair in American History, University of Connecticut
“An incredible story.”
— Bruce Baker, coeditor of After Slavery: Race, Labor, and Citizenship in the Reconstruction South
“Administering Freedom is an exceptional piece of scholarship — a story both fascinating and largely untold . . . . superb.”
— Matthew E. Stanley, Jacobin
“A remarkable achievement and invaluable contribution.”
—Elizabeth Regosin, author of Freedom’s Promise: Ex-Slave Families and Citizenship in the Age of Emancipation
“An incisive, timely book.”
— Leigh Soares, Journal of African American History