The Politics of Individualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era - Hardcover

Kohl, Lawrence Frederick

3.53

15 ratings by Goodreads

9780195053746: The Politics of Individualism: Parties and the American Character in the Jacksonian Era

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195053745 ISBN 13: 9780195053746

Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc, 1989

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In the fifty years following the Revolution, America's population nearly quadrupled, its boundaries expanded, industrialization took root in the Northeast, new modes of transport flourished, state banks proliferated and offered easy credit to eager entrepreneurs, and Americans found themselves in the midst of an accelerating age of individualism and self-reliance. Kohl draws on the political rhetoric found in speeches, newspapers, periodicals and pamphlets to place the Whigs and Democrats in a solid social context. He contends that the political division between these two parties reflected the division between Americans unsettled by the new individualistic social order and those whoe character allowed them to strive more confidently within it. The author brings new insight into the politics and people of Jacksonian America.

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Review:

"One of the many virtues of Kohl's analysis is that it points a way to reintegrate our rather splintered understanding of the relationship between social change and political agendas in the Jacksonian era....More persuasively than any historian since Arthur Schlessinger, Jr., Kohl shows why Andrew Jackson really did deserve his place at the center of Jacksonian politics."―Reviews in American History

"Kohl has an excellent grasp of how it felt to be a Jacksonian Democrat or Whig....Sensitive and gracefully written."―The Journal of Southern History

"Offers an intriguing perspective on the political world of Jacksonian America....Fascinating."―Journal of the Early Republic

"Kohl does an outstanding job of documenting his case....An extraordinarily worthwhile book."―Choice

"Kohl's explanation for the ideological differences between the Jacksonians and the Whigs is the most perceptive and persuasive one that I have ever encountered. It will surely influence all future accounts of the period."―J. Mills Thornton, III, University of Michigan

"This excellent, finely crafted book makes a significant addition to our understanding of party rhetoric and ideologies in the Jacksonian era. Kohl's is the first study to place what Democrats and Whigs said firmly in a psychological context―specifically their divergent personal reactions to an individualistic social order. The result is a persuasive and highly original reading of partisan rhetoric during the 1830s and 1840s. Kohl has produced perhaps the most persuasive explanation ever given for the intense party loyalties forged during the Jacksonian period."―Richard L. McCormick, Rutgers University

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