Interlacing humor into his ongoing narrative, Robert Allen Rutland provides in The Democrats a readable, balanced account of how the Democratic party was founded, evolved, nearly died, and came back in the twentieth century, flourishing as a political melting pot despite numerous setbacks. This updated version of Rutland's much-heralded The Democrats: From Jefferson to Carter provides new insight into the long hiatus in the Democrats' presence in the White House between Carter and Clinton. In additon to analyzing Carter's successes and failures as president, Rutland also examines the forces that went into the Democratic defeats and Republican victories in 1980, 1984, and 1988, concluding with the election of another Jeffersonian Democrat, William Jefferson Clinton. The book ends with an examination of the dramatic results of the 1994 congressional elections that began to alert President Clinton to the challenge he would face in winning reelection in 1996.
| ||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Rutland's prose is clear, precise, and entertaining. Words, phrases, statistical data, and quotations are chosen carefully to hold the reader's interest and convey the exact meaning intended. Because of this, the narrative never becomes a monotonous and somewhat encyclopedic recital of one presidential election after another. Rutland achieves his objective in identifying the philosophical foundations of the Democratic party and its differences as compared to its rivals while also providing an analysis of its past as an integral part of the mainstream of the history of the United States. . . . A perceptive and engaging survey that can be thoroughly enjoyed by the professional historian and layman alike."--Journal of Southern History
About the Author
Robert Allen Rutland is author or editor of numerous books, including The Presidency of James Madison, James Madison: The Founding Father, and James Madison and the American Nation. Editor-in-Chief of The Papers of James Madison from 1971 to 1987, Rutland is Research Professor of American History at the University of Tulsa.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A subjest too broad for one book.,
By Dennis Phillips "The Book Friar" (Bulls Gap, Tennessee USA) - See all my reviews (VINE VOICE) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Democrats: From Jefferson to Clinton (Paperback)
From the start one thing needs to be made very clear about this book. It is a nice read for a Democrat, especially a partisan Democrat like myself. My Republican friends on the other hand would, I'm afraid find very little interesting about this book. Simply put, this is a very one sided view of history. Democrats tend to be pictured in the best possible light from page one. This is not to say that Mr. Rutland has not done his homework for he has. I don't think he ever set out to write an impartial historical epic. What he seems to have intended is basicly a survey type textbook for Democrats. If that was his goal he has accomplished it. Someone looking for a quick political history of the United States told from the Democratic point of view will find it here.The simple fact is that Mr. Rutland took upon himself a rather large task in writing a history of the Democratic party. To do this task justice one would have to turn out a work that would rival in length the volumes written by Shelby Foote on the Civil War. In fact, this subject would probably require even more volumes since the subject covers over two hundred years of history. As it is the book in its 241 pages is only able to deal in the most superficial way with its subject. Still this book does a fair job of following America's oldest party from its roots as Jefferson looks to a nation of farmers to today's urban America. Along the way we see the Democrats changing to become the party of the common man and the underdog. We see the party begin to take its present form in 1896 as William Jennings Bryan and his populists take control of the convention. We see more change in 1912 with the nomination of the progressive Woodrow Wilson. Then in 1932 FDR comes along and the Democratic party is forever changed. Old Democratic issues like tariffs and free silver give way to civil rights and labor relations. The direction of the party continues on the course set by Roosevelt as Harry Truman takes over and then LBJ sets off an a path of sweeping social change that for good or bad forever changes the United States. Oddly, the book gives little credit for the present positions of the Democratic party to JFK. There are also a few places in the book where Mr. Rutland's facts are wrong. For example he states that in the election of 1896 William McKinley took T. Roosevelt with him to Washington as his Vice President when in fact T.R. wasn't on the ticket until 1900. For the most part however his facts do seem straight and he covers the subject as well as could be expected in such a short book. Overall, the book could have been more in depth and such a large subject should probably never have been undertaken. I remember in high school english I always tried to choose a very broad topic for any paper I had to write because I figured it would be easy to turn out twenty pages that way. My teacher always called me on my plan though and I had to narrow it down. Maybe Mr. Rutland needed a good high school english teacher to make him do the same here. On the other hand it is hard to study American history without a study of the Democrats. The party of Jefferson has been here through most of our history. So while this book gives one a quick look at the history of one party it also for the most part does the same for American history. Its not a waste of time to read this book by any means but it is more gravy than meat.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not Well Put Together,
By
This review is from: The Democrats: From Jefferson to Clinton (Paperback)
Let me say right up front that I was disappointed in this book. Maybe I am too stuck in my ways, but when I pick up a history like this I was looking for an well-organized book. I want each President with his own chapter, some details that are presented for each person i.e. year of terms, Vice President etc, and then a nice review of what took place while in office, the good and the bad. The book just did not provide this; the presidents were grouped into chapters on what seemed to be on a basis as to total average chapter page length not by political or situational similarities. The basic facts that I wanted were not there for every President, and if they were there you needed to hunt for them. And if you are going to give me pictures then at least give me a picture of every President covered in the book, what we got were pictures of a few Presidents, a few campaign adds or jokes, and unbelievably to me pictures of city political bosses. The book was positive; I give the author that. When there were negative issues they were glossed over if even mentioned. I new based on the size of the book that it was not going to be an exhaustive history, but even this brief look at each President left me disappointed. Also I kept thinking that the author wanted to write a history of the Democratic party and the publisher wanted a history of the Democratic Presidents and what came out was a compromise that did not serve either cause very well. I would have much rather had a few more pages on FDR (then the 15 offered) and less about the Kansas City and Chicago political bosses and the third party candidates on some elections. I do not want to be all-negative, there were a number of interesting facts and he hit the high notes on each man. I was interested enough to finish the book. I am just going to have to keep looking for a better effort at this topic.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
