The Embattled Vote in America: From the Founding to the Present - Hardcover

Lichtman, Allan J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674972368 ISBN 13: 9780674972360

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2018

Synopsis

The New York Times bestselling author of The Case for Impeachment shows that gerrymandering and voter suppression have a long history. "Lichtman's important book...uses history to contextualize the fix we're in today. Each party gropes for advantage by fiddling with the franchise... Growing outrage, he thinks, could ignite demands for change. With luck, this fine history might just help to fan the flame."-New York Times Book Review Americans have fought and died for the right to vote. Yet the world's oldest continuously operating democracy guarantees no one, not even its citizens, the right to elect its leaders. For most of U.S. history, suffrage has been a privilege restricted by wealth, sex, race, residence, literacy, criminal conviction, and citizenship. Economic qualifications were finally eliminated in the nineteenth century, but the ideal of a white man's republic persisted long after that. Today, voter identification laws, registration requirements, felon disenfranchisement, and voter purges deny many millions of American citizens the opportunity to express their views at the ballot box. An award-winning historian who has testified in more than ninety voting rights cases, Allan Lichtman gives us the deep history behind today's headlines and shows that calls of voter fraud, political gerrymandering and outrageous attempts at voter suppression are nothing new. The players and the tactics have changed-we don't outright ban people from voting anymore-but the battle and the stakes remain just as high.

About this title

Review

Extraordinary and timely, The Embattled Vote in America reveals the politics and history of the right to vote, or, more importantly, the lack of the right to vote. Lichtman's courtroom involvement with voting rights and the breadth and depth of his analysis underscore the significance of the vote in our democracy. A remarkable and provocative book that is essential reading for all citizens.--Orville Vernon Burton, author of The Age of Lincoln

Most compelling is the author's extensive experience in voting rights cases over the last four decades, providing first-hand accounts of the ongoing battles to attain a voice in our democracy. His book is a call to arms and a must-read for any American interested in protecting our most fundamental right, the right to vote.--J. Gerald Hebert, Senior Director of Voting Rights and Redistricting, Campaign Legal Center

A noted authority on the history of American voting returns with a disturbing account of American political leaders who have, since the beginning of the republic, worked to limit the franchise. Lichtman...marches us through the dark history of voter limitation, from the Founders to now, and the images he paints are not flattering. The Constitution itself is vague about voting rights...and as Lichtman escorts us through the decades, we see an ugly pattern: people in power doing everything they can to remain so... The author examines a wide variety of discrimination: by race, gender, place of origin (immigrants, as he reminds us, have rarely been welcome here). He spends a lot of time exploring the denial and suppression of the African-American vote, and he notes how such efforts have succeeded and how they continue to dampen voter turnout... The author also explores the issue of 'voter fraud' that many (who wish to limit voting rights) have long raised. As Lichtman reveals, repeated studies have found virtually no evidence of it... An alarming, important, perhaps even essential book.-- (07/01/2018)

Lichtman's important book emphasizes the founders' great blunder: They failed to enshrine a right to vote in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights...The Embattled Vote in America traces the consequences through American history...[Lichtman] uses history to contextualize the fix we're in today...Growing outrage, he thinks, could ignite demands for change. With luck, this fine history might just help to fan the flame.-- (09/16/2018)

The great value of Lichtman's book is the way it puts today's right-wing voter suppression efforts in their historical setting. He identifies the current push as the third crackdown on African-American voting rights in our history.-- (11/08/2018)

About the Author

Allan J. Lichtman is Distinguished Professor of History at American University and the author of many acclaimed books on U.S. political history, including White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, FDR and the Jews (with Richard Breitman), and The Case for Impeachment. He is regularly sought out by the media for his authoritative views on voting and elections.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0674972368
• ISBN 13: 9780674972360
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 296