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?.