The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

by Alexander Keyssar

Book Overview

Most Americans take for granted their right to vote, whether they choose to exercise it or not. But the history of suffrage in the U.S. is, in fact, the story of a struggle to achieve this right by... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0465005020
• ISBN13: 9780465005024
• Release Date: June 2009
• Publisher: Basic Books
• Length: 494 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

THE book to read!

This book is, undoubtedly, THE best book to read insofar as the history of voting in America. Keyssar writes a fabulous book - meticulously detailing critical historical information - in a manner that is readable and enjoyable. The author does a marvelous job in citing his sources. For all individuals interested in the history of the backbone to American democracy - the right to vote - this is a book that must be read!

Don't take it for granted

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States should be on your required reading list if you are interested in the history of the democratic experiment in the United States. Alexander Keyssar has produced that most unusual book-both enjoyable and profoundly informative.Keyssar traces the always contentious right of Americans to participate in democracy. I, like most others, take for granted that voting is part of our system. We are wrong. As this book shows, the right to vote has been-and continues to be-more an issue of which group has the reigns of power than a fundamental right enjoying consensus support. While The Right to Vote fully covers the struggles of women and African Americans to obtain and keep their voting rights, it also tells the history of voting requirements tied to property ownership, immigration status, and the still-debated criminal status. While focusing on suffrage, Professor Keyssar creates a cohesive political history of the United States. The Right to Vote is one of those important history books that should be read and then often used as a source of reference for all those concerned about our political system.

The Coming of Democracy?

This is a very good history of the right to vote over the course of American history, with some surprises that shouldn't be for those left teary-eyed by the Fourth of July speeches concerning such matters. Democracy has evolved since the beginning of the American experiment, and we should hope that it will continue to do so, to earn its title. Created as a republic in the old-fashioned sense,with conditions of property for eligibility, the slow progression toward 'democracy' begins in the generations after the American Revolution, proceeding briskly yet with severe delimitations, the Civil, Reconstruction, the Second Reconstruction, and the woman's suffrage movement being important by-stations. This account does the job very well of refloatating the shadowy history, ending with a plaintive inspection of the steady retreat of voters from the voting booths. This book could be a useful introduction to the just published book, The Vanishing Voter, and is also, quite apart from its significance for the study of American history, a good companion to the study of the post-Civil War Reconstruction, where the general trend toward democratization actually reversed itself.

Superbly Crafted

There's a trick to writing a good history book. The trick is to not get bogged down in so much picayune detail that the book becomes a bore, while including enough detail to help the reader gain clear, authoritatively-based insight into exactly what happened and how. Fortunately, Keyssar understands this nuance. As a result, this book is engaging like few American histories I've read. At the same time, there is sufficient well-researched and well-documented detail to place this among the best of scholarly works.Apart from the deftness of Keyssar's writing, the subject matter - how voting rights have evolved in America - is one that has received paltry little attention. That is, until now. Thankfully, this book reveals voting rights history in a way that makes the reader feel like he or she is finally getting the history lesson he or she never got in high school - but should have.Of course it has become a cliche to say that "This is a book every American should read." But I would be remiss if I failed to say that the book genuinely made me feel that way. More than that, this is an important book for anyone in the global community that wants to use the American experience to gain deeper insights into the evolution of democracy. In that sense, The Right to Vote is not just "The Contested History of Democracy in the United States," as the subtitle states, it is ultimately the universal story about how human yearning so typically collides with (and challenges) the operatives of the greater political machine. In short, everyone in every nation that cares about the future of democracy should read this book.

It hasn't been done before

This book has helped me trendously with my masters thesis. It drew me in to American History like few books have. Keysaar does a brilliant job of helping us to imagine what it was to be alive during the infancy of our country. Perfect reading during the current "crisis" with the presidential election.