The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz (W.W. Norton & Company, 969 pages, $35.00) During the early 20th century, “Progressive historians” interpreted the American past as an epic struggle to perfect a democratic republic for the common people. Adopting the great American taste for moral melodrama, they cast Thomas […]
Alan Taylor
Alan Taylor, a professor of history at the University of California, Davis, won the Pulitzer Prize for William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic. His most recent book is Writing Early American History.
