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The Rise of American Democracy
Sean Wilentz
Jefferson to Lincoln
W. W. Norton
October 2005
992 pages ISBN: 0393058204 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction Political | Non-Fiction | Historical
A grand political history in a fresh new style of how the
elitist young American republic became a rough-and-tumble
democracy.
In this magisterial work, Sean Wilentz
traces a historical arc from the earliest days of the
republic to the opening shots of the Civil War. One of our
finest writers of history, Wilentz brings to life the era
after the American Revolution, when the idea of democracy
remained contentious, and Jeffersonians and Federalists
clashed over the role of ordinary citizens in government of,
by, and for the people. The triumph of Andrew Jackson soon
defined this role on the national level, while city
democrats, Anti-Masons, fugitive slaves, and a host of
others hewed their own local definitions. In these
definitions Wilentz recovers the beginnings of a
discontent�two starkly opposed democracies, one in the North
and another in the South�and the wary balance that lasted
until the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked its bloody
resolution. 75 illustrations.
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