The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

by Alexander Keyssar
ISBN-10:
0465005020
ISBN-13:
9780465005024
Pub. Date:
06/30/2009
Publisher:
Basic Books
ISBN-10:
0465005020
ISBN-13:
9780465005024
Pub. Date:
06/30/2009
Publisher:
Basic Books
The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

by Alexander Keyssar
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Overview

Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780465005024
Publisher: Basic Books
Publication date: 06/30/2009
Edition description: Revised Edition
Pages: 494
Sales rank: 486,996
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling, Jr., Professor of History and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His 1986 book, Out of Work, was awarded three scholarly prizes, and his book, The Right to Vote, was named the best book in U.S. history by both the American Historical Association and the Historical Society; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Table of Contents

Prefacexi
Introductionxv
Part IThe Road to Partial Democracy1
1In the Beginning3
The Received Legacy5
The Revolution and the Vote8
The States and the Nation21
2Democracy Ascendant26
The Course of Things27
Sources of Expansion33
Ideas and Arguments42
3Backsliding and Sideslipping53
Women, African Americans, and Native Americans54
Paupers, Felons, and Migrants61
Registration and Immigration65
Democracy, the Working Class, and American Exceptionalism67
A Case in Point: The War in Rhode Island71
Part IINarrowing the Portals77
4Know-Nothings, Radicals, and Redeemers81
Immigrants and Know-Nothings82
Race, War, and Reconstruction87
The Strange Odyssey of the Fifteenth Amendment93
The Lesser Effects of War104
The South Redeemed105
5The Redemption of the North117
Losing Faith119
Purifying the Electorate127
Two Special Cases162
Sovereignty and Self-Rule166
The New Electoral Universe168
6Women's Suffrage172
From Seneca Falls to the Fifteenth Amendment173
Citizenship and Texes180
Regrouping183
Doldrums and Democracy196
A Mass Movement202
The Nineteenth Amendment211
Aftermath218
Part IIIToward Universal Suffrage--and Beyond223
7The Quiet Years225
Stasis and Its Sources226
Franklin Roosevelt and the Death of Blackstone237
War and Race244
"Our Oldest National Minority,"253
8Breaking Barriers256
Race and the Second Reconstruction257
Universal Suffrage268
The Value of the Vote284
Two Uneasy Pieces302
Getting the Electorate to the Polls311
Conclusion: The Project of Democracy316
AppendixState Suffrage Laws325
Notes403
Index453

What People are Saying About This

Benjamin I. Page

This magisterial work is of great importance to anyone who wants to understand American politics. (Benjamin I. Page, Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University)

Nancy Cott

A superb retelling of the history of the right to vote. . .instructive to anyone concerned with the fate of democracy. (Nancy F. Cott, Woodward Professor of History and American Studies at Yale)

Frances Fox Piven

. . . a masterful account of America's rocky progress toward realizing universal suffrage. . . .An enormously illuminating book! (Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward, authors of Why Americans Still Don't Vote)

James C. Scott

Keyssar's bold and coercively argued revisionist history of the franchise will be of great value to students of democratization everywhere. (James C. Scott, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Anthropology, Yale University)

Richard Reeves

A wonderful new book. . . It certainly is the right book at the right time if you are engaged by the drama of these times. (Richard Reeves, syndicated columnist)

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