|
|
|
Book Review
| America's Three Regimes: A New Political History. By Morton Keller. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. xii, 336 pp. $27.95, ISBN 978-0-19-532502-7.)
|
| American historians are forever dividing the past into periods, eras, and ages. There is the age of Jackson, the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, the modern era, the colonial period, the party period. In America's Three Regimes, the distinguished historian Morton Keller proposes that we divide the American past into three "regimes": a deferential-republican regime that runs from the colonial period through the 1820s, a party-democratic regime that extends from the 1830s to the 1930s, and a populist-bureaucratic regime that began in the 1930s and continues to the present day. A regime is defined by Keller as "the set of institutions through which a nation makes its fundamental decisions over a sustained period, and the principles that guide those decisions" (p. 2). Keller's panoramic examination of the American polity includes "politics (parties, elections, campaigns, voters), government (the presidency and Congress, the federal bureaucracy and public administration, state and local authority), and law (courts, judges, lawyers, and their cases)" (ibid.). |
1
|
|
Justifying the claim to having composed a "new political history," Keller contrasts his regime-based approach with "the traditional framework of party systems" (ibid.), which divides American history into a succession of party systems punctuated by critical elections— typically 1828, 1860, 1896, and 1932—that realigned the electorate. In truth, this "traditional framework" has never been particularly popular with historians, and its star among political scientists has long since waned after scholars gave up waiting for the next critical election and tired of the debate about whether we were undergoing realignment or dealignment. |
2
|
|
Historians may find Keller's language of regimes to be new—though it is one of the most overused concepts in contemporary political science—but his tripartite division of American history is unlikely to strike historians or political scientists as outlandishly original. Certainly, there is nothing novel about portraying the colonial and founding periods as politically hierarchical and deferential. There is even less that is unusual about characterizing the 1830s as ushering in a sustained "party period," a hypothesis proposed three decades ago by Richard L. McCormick ("The Party Period and Public Policy," Journal of American History, Sept. 1979, pp. 279–98), among others. And no scholar is likely to be surprised to find a political history that portrays the 1930s as a pivotal decade; indeed, for presidential scholars that has long been the conventional dividing line separating the traditional and the modern presidency. Keller's book might have been more accurately subtitled "a damn good synthesis." |
3
|
|
The audience for America's Three Regimes is less the professional historian than the general reader, as is evident in the absence of numbered footnotes; instead, the back of the book contains a list of works that Keller found "particularly useful." Still, there is much here from which historians and political scientists will profit. Who knew that one-third of the roll call votes in the first Congress were devoted to the question of where the capital city should be sited (p. 45)? Or that in 1831 the nation had more postmasters (8,700) than soldiers in the army (6,332) (p. 92)? Keller has an enviable knack for unearthing the telling anecdote or document that enlivens a largely familiar historical narrative. The hierarchical nature of the first political regime, for instance, is nicely illustrated by a letter a Virginia planter wrote to his son in 1811: "I have heard with much pain that you have not recovered your health yet. 493 Book Reviews Would a session in the legislature be of benefit to you?" (p. 71). |
. . . |
There are about 593 more words in this article.
Please log in (or, if you are not yet an
authorized user, please go to the
User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
|
