Political Upheavals

Conservative David Frum noted these five books in the WSJ March 28, 2009. These are all controversial books, but maybe that was the point. Former Bush speechwriter David Frum admonishes the Republican party to stop using gimmicks. Frum appeared on The Daily Show in January 2008. He wrote Comeback:Conservativism that Can Win Again.

The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800, by
Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick (1993) Publisher's Summary Abebooks has it.

Abraham Lincoln, Redeemer President, by Allan C. Guelzo, 1999: Out of Print
Guelzo has a religious tinge to his work. He wrote Abraham Lincoln: Redeemer President. His current book on Lincoln is Lincoln: Man of Ideas. Dr. Allen C. Guelzo is the Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era, Director of Civil War Era Studies, and Associate Director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Pennsylvania. Abebooks has it.


The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, by Richard J. Jensen, 1971: Out of Print See this site for for this book priced at $135 for a copy.
No wonder Amazon suggests that it is hard to get. Abebooks has it.

Richard J. Jensen, professor emeritus of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the author of several books, including Grass Roots Politics: Parties, Issues, and Voters, 1854-1983.

Our Country: The Shaping of America from Roosevelt to Reagan, by Michael Barone.
Free Press. 805 pp. $29.95, 1990. Abebooks has it.

This comes from a review in Commentary magazine: "This book is mislabeled. The title promises that it will do for 1932-88 what Mark Sullivan's Our Times did for 1900-25 and Frederick Lewis Allen's Only Yesterday did for 1920-30. Barone's book is even longer than theirs, but his focus is much narrower: it is essentially an electoral history, an account of the presidential and congressional campaigns and elections from the launching of the New Deal to the end of Reagan's second term." Barone works for American Enterprise Institute, US News & World Report and Fox News.

Canarsie: The Jews and Italians of Brooklyn against Liberalism by Jonathan Rieder (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985) From a review: "The product of Rieder's time in this neighborhood is an ethnographic study of the residents that attempts to explain why a once liberal community turned its back on the Democratic Party in favor of staunch conservatism." The review says, " Rieder fills his book with interviews with the angriest residents of Canarsie." Canarsie is a part of Brooklyn. Here's the google.com reproduction of this book. Rieder is apparently a professor at Barnard College. Abebooks has it.

Frum picked these books because they're about upheavals, he said. Interesting choices.