Americans should build this pivotal post–Civil War era into the new politics of historical memory.
Richard Valelly
Richard Valelly is the Claude C. Smith '14 Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College.
Posted inBooks, Arts and Culture
A Republic, If We Can Build It
Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches by Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, and Howard Rosenthal (MIT Press, 240 pages, $35.00) L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement by Ruth Milkman (Russell Sage Foundation, 264 pages, $24.95) In the face of pronounced income and […]
Posted inFeatures
Books in Review
Jefferson’s Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism By Roger Wilkins. Beacon Press, 176 pages, $14.00 Patriot Fires: Forging a New American Nationalism in the Civil War North By Melinda Lawson. University Press of Kansas, 272 pages, $29.95 The New White Nationalism in America: Its Challenge to Integration By Carol M. Swain. […]
Posted inFeatures
Illuminating the Enlightenment
Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment By Emma Rothschild. Harvard University Press, 353 pages, $45.00 Should you care about the Enlightenment? Yes, you should, and more than a little, says Emma Rothschild, the distinguished British economist. In Economic Sentiments, Rothschild reinterprets the Enlightenment by breathing new life into Adam Smith, Jacques Turgot, and […]
Posted inFeatures
Who Needs Political Parties?
As the major political parties convene this summer, with all the usual noise, pomp, and expense, Americans can be counted on to let out a collective yawn, or maybe a grimace. But not so for political scientists. Academic experts see a lot to like–or at least a lot to study–in the American two-party system. In […]
Posted inCivil Rights in America
Voting Rights in Jeopardy
There is a real danger that the protections of the Voting Rights Act will be rolled back. That will be an invitation to invent dirty tricks to minimize black political influence.
Posted inFeatures
The Vote Counts
It’s a lead-pipe cinch that this year’s election reform panels, hearings, briefs, and reports will feature many attempts to summarize neatly the American experience with voting rights. Most of these sketches are likely to be wrong. If you read The Right to Vote, you will know why. The standard history of voting in America goes […]
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Divided They Govern
Divided government isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
Posted inMoney, Politics, and Power
Vanishing Voters
In 1990 and 1992, the eligible nonvoters will likely outnumber the voters in national elections. A political scientist sorts out the different explanations of the long turnout decline—and what might be done to reverse it.
