The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States

Originally published in 2000, The Right to Vote was widely hailed as a magisterial account of the evolution of suffrage from the American Revolution to the end of the twentieth century. In this revised and updated edition, Keyssar carries the story forward, from the disputed presidential contest of 2000 through the 2008 campaign and the election of Barack Obama. The Right to Vote is a sweeping reinterpretation of American political history as well as a meditation on the meaning of democracy in contemporary American life. Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling, Jr., Professor of History and Social Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His 1986 book, Out of Work , was awarded three scholarly prizes, and his book, The Right to Vote , was named the best book in U.S. history by both the American Historical Association and the Historical Society; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.