| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 112.3 | The History Cooperative

John F. Reynolds. The Demise of the American Convention System, 1880–1911. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2006. Pp. xi, 270. $75.00.
Nominating conventions to select candidates for statewide officers were a common feature of American politics during the Gilded Age. Within a generation, the direct primary replaced these gatherings. The convention, once so important, either disappeared or became only a ritual for party activists to proclaim a platform. In this authoritative study, John F. Reynolds traces the "American convention system" from its heyday to its rapid decline during the Progressive era.	1
A scholar of electoral reform, especially in New Jersey, Reynolds has identified four states—New Jersey, California, Colorado, and Michigan—as case studies for understanding the operations of the convention system. In essence, both the nominating convention and the primary system that replaced it were, in Reynolds's view, ways that the dominant parties preserved their institutional ascendancy. As Reynolds puts it, "the decisive role played by the office-seeking class in shaping the nation's political process remains one of the notable and recurring motifs of American political history" (p. 17).	. . .

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