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D. Matthew Jordan
Lincoln Way East High School, Frankfort, Illinois |
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With the recent midterm elections consuming the news media and
public discussion, we were once again reminded of our duty to
participate in the people's government. Even by our own modem
standards, the critique of our accepting of that duty generally
only goes so far as to look at the voter turnout. Based on these
numbers, scholars and journalists tend to be left with some variation
of the following conclusion: the voters don't care. The evidence
to support that conclusion tends to vary, but the premise is nonetheless
viewed as a problem. Thus, candidates, political parties, PACs,
even (as one colleague pointed out at our session) MTV have sought
ways to invigorate the voting public. Why do people neglect to
register to vote? Why do people decide not to vote? Why, at this
point in our history, are people deciding to sit out of the process?
Altschuler and Blumin's book Rude Republic sets out
to examine issues related to this but in the context of nineteenth
century politics. Contrary to judging the book's cover, however,
the authors do not examine the full century one which begins with
Jefferson Republicans and Federalists and ends with the height
of the Progressive movement. They instead look at a span of about
fifty years, and scrutinize the popular idea that Americans were
overwhelmingly political beings: that politics encompassed most
conversations and gatherings. Using newspaper accounts and other
local records, the authors reconstruct the political atmosphere
in a number of differing towns, following their political behaviors
during this period. Their argument: people were not as involved
with politics as earlier suspected.
Though it can be a difficult read in many parts, I found this book
to be informative. I was extremely interested by their methodology
and use of period newspapers. However, there were times when their
presentation was complicated and made for labored reading. I am
not sure that I accept the authors' broad interpretation of what
constitutes political activity, either.
This book, it is clear, is not written for the consumption of high
school students. I cannot imagine the intended audience being anything
different from the community of political scientists and historians.
That said, we are faced with the difficulty of using this with students
of American history. It might be most useful to utilize either statistical
data as a chart or some of the personal letters to give perspective.
These might be adapted well enough to use in our educational settings.
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