Chronicles the life of Martin Van Buren, focusing on his role in the development and transformation of American politics in the early part of the nineteenth century.

An intellectual biography of James Madison, arguing that he invented American politics as we know it How do you solve a problem like James Madison? The fourth president is one of the most confounding figures in early American history; his political trajectory seems almost intentionally inconsistent. He was both for and against a strong federal government. He wrote about the dangers of political parties in the Federalist Papers and then helped to found the Republican Party just a few years later. This so-called Madison problem has occupied scholars for ages. As Jay Cost shows in this incisive new biography, the underlying logic of Madison’s seemingly mixed record comes into focus only when we understand him primarily as a working politician. Whereas other founders split their time between politics and other vocations, Madison dedicated himself singularly to the work of politics and ultimately developed it into a distinctly American idiom. He was, in short, the first American politician.

This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.

Adams, Alexander argues, was an unwavering politician who strove to protect the people's basic rights and who emphasized the importance of virtue, liberty, a sense of duty, and education in fashioning a republican society. Alexander's fresh reading of Adams' record and a close look into his personal life uncover a masterful politician and a man consistent in his beliefs."--BOOK JACKET.

Combining biography with regional and national history, Dan T. Carter chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of George Wallace, a populist who abandoned his ideals to become a national symbol of racism, and later begged for forgiveness. In The Politics of Rage, Carter argues persuasively that the four-time Alabama governor and four-time presidential candidate helped to establish the conservative political movement that put Ronald Reagan in the White House in 1980 and gave Newt Gingrich and the Republicans control of Congress in 1994. In this second edition, Carter updates Wallace’s story with a look at the politician’s death and the nation’s reaction to it and gives a summary of his own sense of the legacy of “the most important loser in twentieth-century American politics.”

Giving close consideration to previously neglected debates, Matthew Mason challenges the common contention that slavery held little political significance in America until the Missouri Crisis of 1819. Mason demonstrates that slavery and politics were enme

Political corruption in America is worse today than it has been since the Watergate era. Americans know it, and the politicians have known it for years. Urgent calls for reform have become standard fare, but nothing changes. A Democrat President and a Republican Congress were both elected on the strength of their promises of reform. Neither has delivered. Americans contemplate the tottering remains of our ethically bankrupt political system with despair. Fact: The Christian Coalition's 1994 voter guides appear to have been skewered to favor Republican candidates in key congressional races across the country, in direct contravention of federal election law. The truth is, the politicians couldn't be happier dickering over the remains of the welfare state. Because, as you'll learn in Dirty Little Secrets, there is probably not a politician in America who does not benefit directly, personally, and continually from the status quo. Fact: The state Democratic party in Tennessee paid sums in excess of six figures to a number of groups and organizations for various political services in 1994. The problem? None of the groups actually exist, except on paper. Our Politicians, from those in the highest reaches of the Republican and Democratic parties to those in the humblest state congressional districts, evade, massage, and even break the law in order to hold on to power. But instead of merely unmasking corrupt politicians in every region of the country, Dirty Little Secrets analyzes why corruption persists in American politics, despite scandal after scandal, and in spite of periodic bursts of reform. Fact: On the eve of the 1994 elections, mock "pollsters" called up thousand ofvoters in one Wisconsin congressional district to ask whether their electoral decisions would be influenced if they knew one of the candidates was a lesbian. Most politicians want to do the right thing. But they also want to be reelected, and the system is far stronger than any honest man or woman. The influence of money and the intricacies of the levers of power make it easier for politicians to ignore the law than to obey it. In Dirty Little Secrets you will read of the conservative movement's hidden manipulations in 1994, and learn the truth about Newt Gingrich's twenty-year program of political destabilization. The history of the corrupt House the Democrats built with the help of liberal interest groups stands revealed. And Larry J. Sabato and Glenn R. Simpson expose the corrupt and illegal tactics both parties have used for decades to protect and promote their own power. Fact: In 1994, in Alabama, one local election was decided by three hundred votes. Seventeen hundred ballots cast in that election were illegally admitted absentee ballots, some of them submitted by dead people. Sabato and Simpson's fresh reporting and thousands of hours of background research include interviews with influential politicians, consultants, and political operatives, Freedom of Information Act requests, and thousands of pages of obscure campaign reports. They prove corruption is not about bad apples or colorful local traditions. And they offer a completely original plan for reform--Deregulation Plus--that will frighten both parties and make the American electorate smile for the first time in years. Dirty Little Secrets pulls together the corruption story from all parts of the country sooverwhelmingly that no one--from the White House to your house--will be able to deny that political reform must be one of the key issues of the 1996 election campaign.