Category: Jacksonian America
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The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005) by Sean Wilentz
The American Revolution established the world’s first modern republic, but it did not establish a democracy in the sense that Americans understand the term today. The men who declared independence from Great Britain in 1776 and drafted the Constitution eleven years later were committed to representative government, individual liberty, and the principle that political authority…
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The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (2005) by Sean Wilentz
Princeton University’s Sean Wilentz’s The Rise of American Democracy (2005) is an ambitious work of U.S. political history. It is a dense but readable and deeply researched account of how democratic politics took shape from the age of the Revolution through the Civil War. At nearly a thousand pages, the book is far more than…
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The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (1975) by Ernest R. May
Ernest R. May’s The Making of the Monroe Doctrine (1975) is a classic in historical interpretation, exploring not merely the famous and enduring foreign policy proclamation of 1823 but the domestic political crucible from which it emerged. Across 300-some well-researched pages, May reframes the Monroe Doctrine not as an inevitable ideological pronouncement, but rather as…
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Andrew Jackson and the Bank War (1967) by Robert V. Remini
Robert Remini’s Andrew Jackson and the Bank War (1967) is a real gem of a book. I can’t recommend it highly enough. It offers a brilliant account of one of the most consequential and contentious episodes in early American political and economic history. First published in 1967, this work continues to resonate not just as…
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Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 (1965) by William W. Freehling
William W. Freehling’s Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 (1965) by William W. Freehling (1965) remains a foundational text in the study of antebellum American political development. In fewer than two hundred pages, Freehling delivers a penetrating and nuanced examination of one of the most consequential constitutional and political showdowns…
