The Rise of American Democracy: Democracy Ascendant, 1815-1840 by Sean Wilentz (Princeton University)
Ferocious clashes among the Founders over the role of ordinary citizens in a government of we, the people were eventually resolved in the triumph of Andrew Jackson. Thereafter, Sean Wilentz shows, a fateful division arose between two starkly opposed democracies-a division contained until the election of Abraham Lincoln sparked its bloody resolution. The College Edition features a new preface and further reading lists for each volume. It eliminated the endnotes of the one-volume edition but preserves the entire text of the original.