Introduction: Friends unseen : the ballad of political dependency -- Hungry for protection : the Confederate roots of dependence -- Slaves and the great deliverer : freedom and friendship behind Union lines -- Vulnerable at the circumference : demobilization and the limitations of the Freedmen's Bureau -- The great day of acounter : democracy and the problem of power in Republican Reconstruction -- The persistence of prayer : dependency after redemption -- Crazes, fetishes, and enthusiasms : the silver mania and the making of a new politics -- A compressive age : White supremacy and the growth of the modern state -- Coda: Desperate times call for distant friends : Franklin Roosevelt as the last good king?
