Daniel Carpenter is Allie S. Freed Professor of Government at Harvard University and author of the prizewinning books Reputation and Power and The Forging of Bureaucratic Autonomy. At Harvard, he has led the creation of the Digital Archive of Antislavery and Anti-Segregation Petitions and the Digital Archive of Native American Petitions.
A tour de force of prodigious research and muscular
analysis. Carpenter persuasively demonstrates that petitions were
critical to the process of democratization in nineteenth-century
North America. Along the way, he sheds new light on a wide range of
issues and episodes, many of which have previously escaped the
notice of historians and political scientists. The book, quite
simply, is eye-opening. -- Alexander Keyssar, author of Why Do
We Still Have the Electoral College?
Democracy by Petition presents a magisterial view of an
evolving political practice in which individuals and groups across
North America seized the right to petition higher authorities for
aid, redress, protection, or access. With riveting examples and
clarifying analyses, Daniel Carpenter illuminates how Native
Americans, African Americans, Irish Americans, Mexicans, French
Canadians, women of all backgrounds, and many more became agents of
political change, sharpening the possibility for real democracy by
means of an antiquated though often effective tool: the paper
prayer. A monumental achievement of political history, this book is
crucial reading for anyone seeking to learn how democratic
practices are forged through unexpected and 'emergent' politics. --
Tiya Miles, author of The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of
Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits
In this landmark book, Daniel Carpenter demonstrates the essential
role that petitioning has played in the politics of
democratization. Drawing upon a massive data collection effort and
deep archival research, Carpenter offers a new way of thinking
about how the dialogue between government and citizens shapes
political development. -- Eric Schickler, author of Racial
Realignment: The Transformation of American Liberalism,
1932-1965
An astonishing piece of scholarship, such as comes along once in a
generation. Democracy by Petition urges us to reconsider
what democracy is, how it extends beyond electoral politics, and
how governance in North America actually works. -- Richard White,
author of The Republic for Which It Stands: The United States
during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age, 1865-1896
Daniel Carpenter illuminates petitions as active agents of
democratization, harnessed by diverse and divergent groups across
North America-including Indigenous nations who refused removal and
Black abolitionists who refused containment by an emergent 'settler
republic.' As Democracy by Petition reveals, these efforts
refashioned the petition itself from a humble plea into an
instrument of political power. -- Lisa Brooks, author of Our
Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War
Possibly the most original work on democracy in 2021...Offers
lessons that transcend the American experience, because it allows
us to think about democracy and democratization as something far
more diverse than the package of the Western Consensus. * Democracy
Paradox *
Daniel Carpenter's Democracy by Petition is an extraordinary
tour de force. In this extensively researched book, Carpenter
places petitions at the forefront of the development of democracy
in North America. He demonstrates how groups as distinct as French
Canadians in Lower Canada, Indigenous nations throughout the
continent as well as African Americans and women used petitions to
seek redress and promote political change. Carpenter's book
reshapes our understanding of the emergence of democracy in North
America. It foregrounds the role of a largely overlooked set of
diverse civil society actors and their novel political strategies
in prompting democratic development. -- Seymour Martin Lipset Best
Book Award Selection Committee
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