by Alexander Keyssar
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Product Description
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 our society's marginalized groups. In The Right to Vote, Duke historian Alexander Keyssar explores the evolution of suffrage over the course of the nation's history. Examining the many features of the history of the right to vote in the U.S.—class, ethnicity, race, gender, religion, and age—the book explores the conditions under which American democracy has expanded and contracted over the years.Keyssar presents convincing evidence that the history of the right to vote has not been one of a steady history of expansion and increasing inclusion, noting that voting rights contracted substantially in the U.S. between 1850 and 1920. Keyssar also presents a controversial thesis: that the primary factor promoting the expansion of the suffrage has been war and the primary factors promoting contraction or delaying expansion have been class tension and class conflict.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent and thorough, 2007-12-18
This must be the definitive history of voting in America. I hold back from giving it five stars because it was a little more than what I was looking for, but this is as thorough as I have ever come across. Also, I love charts and graphs, and he has a great array of tables at the end. Interesting tidbit was the role war played throughout American history in expanding the right to vote. Also, though we all know how the right to vote gradually expanded, but what many of us didn't realize was how the right to vote actually shrunk at various points in American history. That is, some people who had the right to vote had it taken away at various moments in American history. When all is said and done, this is a great book.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Unfolding of the right to vote in the U.S., 2006-11-05
In my forty years of studying the history of the U.S., I find this work to be the most authoritative and complete work yet encountered. Not only is the book a thorough guide through the evolution of our democracy, it is an entertaining read. The book is a 'must' read for those who seek a perspective on many of the current issues involving voting rights.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
THE book to read!, 2003-06-29
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!
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
Don't take it for granted, 2002-12-14
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.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
The Coming of Democracy?, 2002-10-21
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.
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