Table of Contents

List of illustrations

Chapter 1 The Politics of the Constitution, 1787-89
Chapter 2 Contentious People and Factious Parties in the Early Republic, 1789-1824
Chapter 3 The Age of Democracy, 1816-1844
Chapter 4 The Politics of Slavery: Prelude to the Civil War, 1844-1860
Chapter 5 Politics in War and Reconstruction, 1861-1876
Chapter 6 Gilded Age Frustration and the Progressive Response, 1877-1918
Chapter 7 Affluence, Depression, and World War, 1920-1945
Chapter 8 Early Cold War Politics, 1946-74
Chapter 9 America Divided, 1974-present

References
Further reading
Index

About the Author

Donald T. Critchlow is Professor of History at Arizona State University. He is the author of When Hollywood Was Right: How Movie Moguls, Film Stars, and Big Business Remade American Politics to be published by Cambridge University Press. In addition, he has authored and edited many other books including The Conservative Ascendancy: How the GOP Made Political History (Harvard, 2007; revised 2011, Kansas); Phyllis Schlafly and
Grassroots Conservatism (Princeton, 2005; paper 2007); and Intended Consequences: Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government (Oxford, 1999, pap. 2001). He is currently working on a book American Democracy Now and Its Future, a
data-driven book. He is editor of the Journal of Policy History, an interdisciplinary quarterly published by Cambridge University Press.

Reviews

This Very Short Introduction is a concise, readable narrative of American political history. Critchlow has done a particularly good job at illustrating transitions in elite political culture.
*Reviews in History, Mark Power Smith*