Introduction
Chapter One: The Triumph of Equality
Chapter Two: The Significance of the West in American History
Chapter Three: Reconstructing America
Chapter Four: The Search for Electoral Votes
Chapter Five: The West and the South Join Forces
Chapter Six: The Post World War II West 1951-1980
Chapter Seven: The Rise of Movement Conservatism
Conclusion: The Nature of America
Heather Cox Richardson is Professor of History at Boston College. Her previous works include West from Appomattox and To Make Men Free.
"Heather Cox Richardson's skill with connecting events into a
cohesive narrative is on full display in this brilliant
study...This book speaks to the heart of life in the United States
and should be in every private, public, and school library." --
Deborah M. Liles, Southwestern Historical Quarterly
"... Richardson suggested that her most recent book, How the South
Won the Civil War, was her "smartest". There is no doubt that it
is, at the very least, her most ambitious." -- Catherine McNicol
Stock, Connecticut College, The Annals of Iowa
"A timely and vivid account of America's enduring struggle between
democratic ideals and oligarchical demands -- from a stellar
historian. The themes are broad and the implications mighty, but
this isn't history from on high. Richardson uses a human lens to
tell her tale, revealing the passions and power-plays that have
sustained this battle for dominance. The end result is something
rare and invaluable: a skilled work of history, deeply grounded in
the past,
that speaks loudly, clearly, and crucially to the present." --
Joanne Freeman, Yale University, author of The Field Of Blood:
Violence in Congress and the Road to Civil War
"A thought-provoking study of the centuries-spanning battle between
oligarchy and equality in America. " -- Kirkus
"Though Richardson underemphasizes the prevalence of racism,
sexism, and inequality in other parts of the country during and
following the Civil War, she marshals a wealth of evidence to
support the book's provocative title. Conservatives will cry foul,
but liberal readers will be persuaded by this lucid jeremiad." --
Publishers Weekly
"What the great books do is retell history in a way that creates a
deepened and clarified connection between what was and what is. The
brilliant historian Heather Cox Richardson has produced magic with
this stunning work, which fuses the historian's craft to the
storyteller's art. I love this book. For anyone seeking to
understand how we got here, and where we're likely bound, this is a
must-read." -- Ron Suskind, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and
author of
The Price of Loyalty and Hope in the Unseen
"Good revisionist history jars you, forces you to look at the past
in a new way, and thereby transforms your view of the present.
Heather Cox Richardson is a master of the genre, to the benefit of
us all. Even those who take issue with her will be forced by this
powerful book to come to terms with aspects of our past that we
often just sweep under the rug of memory. Important and
revelatory." -- E.J. Dionne JR., author of Code Red: How
Progressives and
Moderates Can Unite to Save Our Country
"In a tour de force, Richardson exposes the philosophical
connective tissue that runs from John C. Calhoun, to Barry
Goldwater, to Donald Trump. It's not party, it's a complex ideology
that has swaddled white supremacy and its political, legal,
economic, and physical violence in the language of freedom and
rugged individualism, and, in doing so, repeatedly slashed a series
of self-inflicted wounds on American democracy." -- Carol Anderson,
Emory University,
author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of our Racial Divide and
One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying our
Democracy
"Those interested in American history, politcis, and its historical
development will find much to enjoy in this well-written, argued
work." -- Library Journal, *starred review
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