“The pattern of the South’s Reconstruction, more than the pattern of Japan’s, has anticipated occupations elsewhere — above all in Iraq, where some supporters of the old regime participate in a campaign of terror even as a long-oppressed and newly enfranchised group struggles to claim power. What are the lessons of our own self-reconstruction?” By way of The Late Adopter (who, darn it, beat me to the great “Fables of the Reconstruction” post-title), historian and Promise of the New South author Edward Ayers discusses the applicability of Reconstruction to current events.