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The Rise of American Democracy – Jefferson to Lincoln Paperback – Illustrated, 9 Jan. 2007
Purchase options and add-ons
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Print length1104 pages
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LanguageEnglish
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PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
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Publication date9 Jan. 2007
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Dimensions15.75 x 4.83 x 23.37 cm
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ISBN-100393329216
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ISBN-13978-0393329216
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Review
Confirms Sean Wilentz as the Richard Hofstadter of our day--the supreme political historian.--Franklin Foer "New York"
Remarkable . . . a book that befits its subject in artistry as well as scale.--Steven Hahn "Chicago Tribune"
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Illustrated edition (9 Jan. 2007)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 1104 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393329216
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393329216
- Dimensions : 15.75 x 4.83 x 23.37 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 136,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 1,072 in Environment (Books)
- Customer reviews:
About the authors
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Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
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Sean Wilentz is the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979. He received his Ph.D. in history from Yale University (1980) after earning bachelor’s degrees from Columbia University (1972) and Balliol College, Oxford University (1974). He is the author or editor of thirteen books, including The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005), which was awarded the Bancroft Prize and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His writings on American music have earned him two Grammy nominations and two Deems-Taylor-ASCAP awards. (He also holds the semi-facetious title of Historian-in-Residence at Bob Dylan's official website, www.bobdylan.com.) Professor Wilentz lectures frequently and has written some four hundred articles, reviews, and op-ed pieces for publications such as the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone, Le Monde, and Dissent. He has helped prepare speeches and congressional testimony, most notably his own testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in conjunction with the impeachment drive against President Bill Clinton in December 1998. He spent the academic year 2014-15 as the Leah and Michael Weisberg Fellow at the New-York Historical Society and the Siemens Berlin Prize Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. He also delivered the annual Nathan I. Huggins Lectures at Harvard, which he is now preparing for publication as "No Property in Man": The Origins of American Antislavery Politics.
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Wilentz tells the story forcefully and meticulously. He also tells it with some flair. The sketches of Clay, Jackson, Van Buren, Webster, Calhoun, and Polk are particularly compelling and interesting. You will have to be patient with the long wind-up that sets the background of the book and brings the reader up to the War of 1812. Once you get to the War of 1812, the book takes off, and the characters that pepper the history of this period come to life.
Although the flyleaf compares Wilentz to Hofstadter, Wilentz lacks Hofstadter's interpretive flair and breadth of vision. He sticks to his narrative and to a handful and relatively simple but important themes. Also, Wilentz is not quite the narrative historian that David Potter and James McPherson are. Potter's "The Impending Crisis" is still the great history of the immediate antebellum era (1848-61) and James McPherson's "Battle Cry of Freedom", which also runs from 1848 but through the end of the Civil War, is also a leading work of the period. Wilentz, however, ties the period into the context of the first half of the 18th century. His contribution in that regard is invaluable.
Stick with this book despite its slow beginning and great length. It's definitely worth the effort.
In the beginning was Jefferson & his Republican reaction to the Federalist cause & in the end another Republican of a different stripe, Abraham Lincoln. In the middle towers Andrew Jackson eroding the government of, by, and for the Privilaged Few by the torrents of his Populism. All those Presidents in between (there are eleven excluding Jackson) come to life in this hefty piece of scholarship. The dramatic tension is between those Presidents, Congress, the Court, & the people; it is the struggle to define democracy. Political differences are seen to coalesce to form parties, some more well defined than others but none maintaining the granite like identity of the now conservative & liberal parties in Great Britain. American political parties (when they appeared) were giant blobs of improvisation using the power of their constituencies to puff themselves up to govern for a time then deflate & morphing into something else again. It is an enchanting tale. The rise continues to this day.
Somehow my early education never connected the dots between the Founding Fathers & the American Revolution & Lincoln's Second Revolution. The dots get connected but the picture is not graphically pleasing. The rise of American democracy was an evolutionary process that was essentially gritty & chaotic but the themes Wilentz exposes are what make the story so much fun to read & so valuable to learn. I now have a better understanding of how we got here & the trip was well worth the ride.
That is, if you are a serious history buff with a long attention span. This book is not for light readers with a cursory interest in the period in question.
Do proceed with caution. Wilentz caricatures the early Federalists to some extent, and he sometimes goes easy on the Democratic Party. This naturally reflects his democratic - small 'd' - bias. Wilentz also likes to think he's savvier than most historians in assessing the true intentions of important figures, and the actual consequences of the major events, during that time. He flatters himself too much.
Yet Wilentz has enough integrity to recognize the faults of many of our post-revolutionary and antebellum leaders and he doesn't really whitewash anything. He is especially good detailing ground-level and grass-roots fights in localities and states over the nature and extent of democracy.
A worthwhile read despite its flaws. I'd also recommend What Hath God Wrought by Daniel Walker Howe and Throes of Democracy by Walter McDougall for different though less detailed interpretations of the same era.