America's Three Regimes A New Political History

by Keller, Morton

• ISBN13: 9780195325027
• ISBN10: 0195325028
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-10-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

When historians take the long view, they look at "ages" or "eras" (the Age of Jackson, the Progressive Era). But these time spans last no longer than a decade or so. In this groundbreaking new book, Morton Keller divides our nation's history into three regimes, each of which lasts many, many decades, allowing us to appreciate, as never before, the slow steady evolution of American public life. Americans like to think of our society as eternally young and effervescent. But the reality is very different. A proper history of America must be as much about continuity, persistence, and evolution as about transformation and revolution. To provide this proper history, Keller groups America's past into three long regimes--Deferential and Republican, from the colonial period to the 1820s; Party and Democratic, from the 1830s to the 1930s; and Populist and Bureaucratic, from the 1930s to the present. This approach yields many new insights. We discover, for instance, that the history of colonial America, the Revolution, and the Early Republic is a more unified story than usually assumed. The Civil War, industrialization, and the Progressive era did relatively little to alter the character of the democratic-party regime that lasted from the 1830s to the 1930s. And the populist-bureaucratic regime in which we live today has seen changes in politics, government, and law as profound as those that occurred in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. As Keller underscores the sheer staying power of America's public institutions, he sheds light on current concerns as well: in particular, will the current political polarization continue or will more moderate forces prevail. Here then is a major contribution to United States history--an entirely new way to look at our past, our present, and our future--packed with provocative and original observations about American public life.

Author Biography

Morton Keller is Spector Professor of History Emeritus at Brandeis University. The author or editor of numerous books and articles on American history, he is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: The American Polity and Its Regimes	p. 1
The Deferential-Republican Regime	p. 7
Old Ways and New	p. 11
The Republican Revolution	p. 23
From Factions to Parties	p. 42
The Party-Democratic Regime: The Democratic Polity	p. 67
The Culture of Democratic Party Politics	p. 71
Governing a Democratic Polity	p. 88
Crisis	p. 105
The Party-Democratic Regime: The Industrial Polity	p. 133
The Age of the Politicos	p. 135
A State of Parties and Courts	p. 151
The Progressive Interlude	p. 174
The Populist-Bureaucratic Regime	p. 201
The Rise of the Populist-Bureaucratic Regime	p. 207
Bureaucracy and Democracy	p. 231
Populism and Party	p. 259
Epilogue: Today and Tomorrow	p. 281
Notes	p. 301
Index	p. 321
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