| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 105.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Michael F. Holt. The Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party: Jacksonian Politics and the Onset of the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press. 1999. Pp. xviii, 1248. $55.00.

Michael F. Holt's history of the Whig Party is the "Dixon H. Lewis" of history books. Like the 430-pound, antebellum Alabama senator, it can rarely be mentioned without first making reference to its size. Although it was finally published in 1250 densely packed pages, Holt reveals in his preface that skillful editors helped him pare 750 pages from the manuscript before going to press. In Holt's defense (and a book that imposes so heavily on a reader's short life needs defending), his fundamental view of how American politics works may have required the extended text and massive notes that made this book so long. First, Holt believes that the Whigs cannot be understood fully apart from their Democratic opponents, so he had to spend much of his time describing Jacksonian actions and beliefs. Second, he maintains that the parties must be understood as part of a federal system, so he had to treat state as well as national politics. Third, he argues that one cannot understand American politics simply as a history of presidential elections, so he also analyzed both legislative activity and electoral behavior at the congressional and state levels. Fourth, Holt thinks change over time is critical to historical understanding, so a full narrative of the second party system had to be written. And finally, Holt believes that we must understand the actors from their own perspective, so he was required to get inside the minds of his subjects. Many have called the result "magisterial." It is certainly that, but its length and detail also make it mind-numbingly tedious to all but the most dedicated scholar or fanatical political junkie. . . .

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