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Heather Cox Richardson

To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party Hardcover – September 23, 2014

by Heather Cox Richardson (Author)

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When Abraham Lincoln helped create the Republican Party on the eve of the Civil War, his goal was to promote economic opportunity for all Americans, not just the slaveholding Southern planters who steered national politics. Yet while visionary Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower shared Lincoln’s egalitarian dream, their attempts to use government to guard against the concentration of wealth have repeatedly been undone by the country’s moneyed interests and members of their own party. Ronald Reagan’s embrace of big business—and the ensuing financial crisis—is the latest example of this calamitous cycle, but it is by no means the first.

In To Make Men Free, celebrated historian Heather Cox Richardson traces the shifting ideology of the Grand Old Party from the antebellum era to the Great Recession, showing how Republicans’ ideological vacillations have had terrible repercussions for minorities, the middle class, and America at large. Expansive and authoritative, To Make Men Free explains how a relatively young party became America’s greatest political hope—and, time and time again, its greatest disappointment.

Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Basic Books
Publication date

September 23, 2014
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.65 x 9.65 inches
ISBN-10

0465024319
ISBN-13

978-0465024315
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Sean Wilentz, author of The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln
“At its Lincolnian best, the G.O.P. has been not just grand but good. In To Make Men Free, the eminent political historian Heather Cox Richardson superbly brings the Republican Party's history to life, while offering sharp and often surprising interpretations of its rises and declines, when it heeded Lincoln's legacy and when it did not.”

Eric Rauchway, Professor of History, University of California, Davis
“Heather Cox Richardson tells a great story, full of fascinating figures, of how the Republican Party has enjoyed extraordinary political success in a country full of poor people, while doing much to serve the rich. It's a vital chapter in the history of American conservatism.”

T.J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt
“In To Make Men Free, one of our most admired historians takes on one of the most important topics of our past and present: the 160-year story of the Republican Party. From Abraham Lincoln to George W. Bush, from Radical Republicans to Movement Conservatives, Heather Cox Richardson recounts the GOP's dramatic history with unimpeachable insights and crisp, vivid writing. How did the anti-slavery party become the party of the Solid South? How did the anti-trust party of Theodore Roosevelt become the party of Wall Street and the Club for Growth? In this brisk account, Richardson make sense of a twisting tale that shapes our lives every day.”

Ari Kelman, Bancroft Prize-winning author of A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek
“Heather Cox Richardson has written a much-needed book: a comprehensive and balanced history of the Republican Party. The prose is engaging, the research is deep, the argument is persuasive; To Make Men Free is the work of a major talent at the top of her craft.”

Publishers Weekly
“[An] opinionated history...Richardson aptly ends by wondering if the modern Republican Party ‘will find a way to stay committed to the ideals of its founders.'”

Ruy Teixeira, co-author of The Emerging Democratic Majority
“Heather Cox Richardson's concise history of the Republican Party shows how a party that once saw government as the guarantor of equal opportunity for all morphed into today's intransigently anti-government, anti-tax, anti-regulation GOP. Richardson convincingly demonstrates that the Republican Party has oscillated throughout its history between equal opportunity and protection of property rights as its lodestar. Those seeking clues to how the GOP might evolve in the future will want to read this important book.”

New York Times Book Review
“A readable and provocative account of the many paths that Republicans have taken to their current state of confusion.”

Los Angeles Times
“The most comprehensive account of the GOP and its competing impulses... an important contribution to understanding where we are today.”

Washington Post
“The book offers a lively survey of Republican politics in all its diversity, from the ‘transformational presidency' of Abraham Lincoln (to borrow a 21st-century term) to the conservative ascendancy of Ronald Reagan.”

Washington Spectator
“A rich portrait of the thinking and times of Abraham Lincoln and those closest to him in the founding of the Republican Party... perceptive and persuasive.... Readers of Richardson's history of the GOP will come away with a good sense of the complex path that led the party to the abnegation of the Lincoln legacy.”

New Republic
“[Richardson's] theory of the party's historical cycle is intriguing.”

Open Letters Monthly
“Sharp and readable.”

Kirkus
“Richardson makes a bold, pertinent argument.... A hard-hitting study that will surely resonate with ongoing attempts to regenerate the GOP.”

About the Author

Heather Cox Richardson is a Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Author of West from Appomattox, The Greatest Nation of the Earth, and The Death of Reconstruction, she lives in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; 1st edition (September 23, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465024319
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465024315
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.35 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.65 x 9.65 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #31,379 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #21 in Political Parties (Books)
- #94 in History & Theory of Politics
- #104 in Political Conservatism & Liberalism

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Top reviews from the United States

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Mickey Long

Exposing Big Merchants' Mercenaries, From the Civil War Forward

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2019

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Good and important material for all to read; she nearly predicted Trump-McConnell. Love how this book assembles much information in a manner that tracks the shifts in both the Republican and Democrat Parties, mostly based around the "Movement Conservatives" as she defines them. Better, would be to call them Big Merchants' Mercenaries in both parties. Tactically, they employ stealth as a weapon to engage in battle to control politicians, appoint judges, and government administrators. All this usurps such activities away from the governed, the people (as Lincoln taught at Gettysburg). These business groups use the Constitution as a wolf uses sheep for clothing. Better still, she uses her historian skills to show how this effort by these Big Merchants' Mercenaries (paid by the wealthy folks) is not new. She tracks back their same Republican arguments to before the Civil War. She's wrong in thinking they are Conservatives. They don't seek to conserve anything but their own wealth, to increase and concentrate it. They are super merchants, very rich, against mom & pops and small entrepreneurs. They are today's Globalists. Democracies are friction to their profits. The author does point out, though, that nothing is new, but they're winning more than before. They use media better than ever because collectively they control billions (even trillions) and through media they control too many of us.

22 people found this helpful

Helpful

Lee H

Entertaining, but somewhat biased.

Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2020

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While factually accurate, which I am assuming, based on the author’s background, the liberal bias ( Ivy League education and teaching positions): and spin is clearly evident. Many of the opinion comments most searing to the Republicans are footnoted from her own writings. I enjoy reading factual history books, but this one came off to me as more of an “op-Ed”.

19 people found this helpful

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AndAnotherThing

Essential History

Reviewed in the United States on June 19, 2020

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As lucid an account of the ebbs and flows of history of the seesawing of Republican ideology from Lincoln through GW Bush as you're likely to read. Although the book was published in 2014, Richardson unknowingly, yet unerringly, lays the groundwork for the zeitgeist of the Trump era, the Republican pendulum's swing to an ideology of extreme favoritism for the haves, the corruption of constitutional norms, the scorn for expertise, and mistrust of science. The thesis of the work is based on the radical shifts in Republican orthodoxy linking the presidencies of Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. As readable as it is informative.

11 people found this helpful

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Amazon Customer

Simply put, this is the most important book I ...

Reviewed in the United States on April 27, 2018

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Simply put, this is the most important book I have read in decades. Professor Richardson writes in a clear unpretentious style with end notes supporting each paragraph. The story of the Republican Party tells the story of this Country's most important political moments and of its most influential leaders (Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, and Eisenhower) in the shaping of our modern society. A major theme is the tension between the protection of people's rights and the protection of accumulated wealth. It is ironic that the Republican Party has been both the more progressive and more regressive party. Thank you, Professor.

25 people found this helpful

Helpful

James F. Perry

Fair and balanced, but ultimately devastating to the modern GOP

Reviewed in the United States on July 10, 2015

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Lincoln's Gettysburg Address redefined the country to include equality as a basic principle. His Republican Party, and the Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, saw the security of the country as depending vitally on the good health, education, and prosperity of every American. That's what equality meant to them. This was not at all the view of the Southern slaveholders and monarchists, who saw the security of the country as depending vitally on the prosperity of the owners of most of the land. They saw the prosperity of the lower classes not as a bulwark against natural disaster and foreign invasion but as an internal threat to the privileges of the wealthy. Richardson's book offers by far the most understandable account of the tension between these two views that I have ever read. It is well-written, and offers 35 pages of citations for every significant claim.

48 people found this helpful

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Bar and Thom

Wonderful Book

Reviewed in the United States on December 27, 2019

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If you want to make sense of today's politics this book is a good place to start. It is a very fair overview of the continual changes in American politics over time. I personally beige it is a must read for anyone that wants to understand and comment on who the Democratic and Republican parties represented at specific points in time.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

To Make Men Free is a succinct history of the Republican Party from the days of Lincoln to those of Bush by a fine historian

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2015

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The Republican Party began in the 1850s as a party devoted to halting the extension of slavery in the nation. The party was founded by Abolitionists who elected Abraham Lincoln in the divisive presidential contest of 1860. Lincoln s vision of his party changed as the Gilded Age appeared. During that time the Republicans allied themselves with big business electing presidents such as US Grant., Rutherford B. Hayes and Benjamin Harrison.. Then came the wonder that was Theodore Roosevelt! Teddy was a reformer who sought to tax corporations, clean up the environment and reduce working hours for women and children. His leadership led him to break from the Republicans and form the Progressive party on which he ran for president in 1912 to loose to Woodrow Wilson the Democratic candidate. Following the end of World War I the country turned to the Republicans Harding,Coolidge and Hoover. The Depression struck and no Republican was elected until the great president Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. Reagan was a movement conservative who was a follower of Barry Goldwater. The GOP has moved to the right favoring white voters, evangelicals and opposing big government
Professor Heather Cox Richardson has done a good job of telling the story of the Republican Party. She is a professor of history at Boston University. This is a controversial book since it is obvious the author is a liberal. I found her book to be enlightening, well informed and beneficial.

20 people found this helpful

Helpful

Wisconsin resident

Explains why things were, and are, the way they were, and are.

Reviewed in the United States on May 21, 2018

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This is a uniquely insightful analysis of the GOP emphasizing the swings and cycles of ideology. The Republicans of 1865, 1905, and 1957 were vastly different from the parties of 1880, 1930, and 2016, and Prof. Richardson explains the context beautifully. A book that will never need to be left in a Little Free Library.

10 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Thomas A. Regelski

like this reader

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 14, 2018

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This volume is a very important contribution to understanding US politics since the rise of the Republican party with Lincoln. It demonstrates, first, the initial political ideology in favor of economic ideology, and then the quick reversal of that ideology to favor wealth over the ordinary voter. It chronicles the revival of GOP original ideology in the Progressive movement of the 1920s-30s and its bling opposition to the New Deal. We also get substantial views of Rockefeller Republicanism, Regan Republicanism, Bush1&2k Republicanism and their various implications and many problems. In several respect it is a kind of "expose" of Republican ideology and its many contradictions over time. A must read for Republicans who have lost their way in the changing ideological wars within the part, including the Movement Conservatives, and certainly of major insight to political critics who, like this reader, were unaware of the vastly important changes over time of the party. Having read this, it is difficult any longer to speak of "the" Republican party/ideology, rather than refer specifically to a melange of ever-changing positions, some of which cancel earlier ones out. Too bad it covers only until the Obama challenge, until 2014. GOP and Conservative readers will be surprised to learn of the many twists and turns of their party, and of the loss of its founding message of economic, social, and political equality.

One person found this helpful

SJP

Explains a lot.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 10, 2020

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A terrific book that helps explain US politics, particularly what is going on there right now. This is history, written by a professor with a knack for describing complex issues with simplicity. It certainly helped me cut through the political chatter that surrounds us these days and understand the context of current events. Highly recommended.

Avid Reader

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 13, 2019

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Well written and well researched book. Helps to explain how why the party of Lincoln has moved from wanting equality of opportunity for everyone to become a party of rich, elitist, religious conservatives. Stops as Obama elected. Recommended to those interested in US history.

k gotheridge

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 29, 2017

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A really good informative read.

Gerard McAuliffe

Great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 30, 2015

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Excellent book for anybody looking to not only understand the Republican party but American history more broadly. In some ways it's a little bit partisan but overall still deserves the five stars.

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