The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush - Softcover

Rutland, Robert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826210902 ISBN 13: 9780826210906

Publisher: University of Missouri, 1996

Synopsis

The Republican party has always been fascinating to those who subscribe to its principles, as well as to those who take an alternative stand on the issues. In The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush, Robert Allen Rutland has brought a clear and concise understanding of this political party to the general reader. The book is a lucid and fast-paced overview of the Republican party from its beginnings in the 1850s through the 1994 congressional elections, which saw the Democratic domination of the House and Senate come to an abrupt end.

In a crisp, highly readable style, Rutland begins by explaining how the "obnoxious" Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 overturned the Missouri Compromise, inflamed the North, and caused the collapse of the Whig and American parties. The result was the birth of the Republican party, whose purpose was to oppose the Democrats and stop the spread of slavery. Abraham Lincoln was elected the first Republican president in 1860.

The Republicans suggests that a major shift in voting strength took place twice during the twentieth century, first in the New Deal years, and again after 1968 when the GOP made an appeal to southern voters and finally took control of the area that had previously been dominated by the Democrats. With the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as the fortieth president of the United States, the Republicans gained support from many first-time voters, middle-class whites, and labor unions-- groups not previously expected to vote Republican. In the companion volume, The Democrats: From Jefferson to Clinton, Rutland provides an honest and straightforward assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of Democratic presidents. Here he presents an evenhanded look at the good and not-so-good Republicans. By skillfully using stories and anecdotes from various administrations to enliven this narrative of political history, Rutland gives Republicans and Democrats alike a deeper appreciation for the two-party system.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Allen Rutland is Research Professor of History at the University of Tulsa. He is also the author of numerous books, including The Democrats: From Jefferson to Clinton, The Republicans: From Lincoln to Bush, and James Madison: The Founding Father (all with the University of Missouri Press).

From Kirkus Reviews

A once-over-lightly briefing on the individuals and principles that have made the Republican Party a force to be reckoned with in US politics since it first backed a presidential candidate (John C. Fr‚mont) in 1856. Focusing on the men who campaigned successfully or not for the White House and, to a lesser extent, their opponents, Rutland (The Democrats, 1979, etc.) touches, without dwelling on, the high points of American history over the past 140 years. Starting with the formation of the Grand Old Party by erstwhile Whigs opposed to the spread of slavery into the young country's western territories, he calls the roll of GOP luminaries and also-rans. Their ranks encompass the oddly coupled likes of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Wendell Willkie, Thomas Dewey, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Nelson Rockefeller, and George Bush. In an apparent effort to give his episodic text some continuity, the author (a historian at the University of Tulsa) speculates in no great depth on myopic forgiveness as a perdurable fixture of Republican politics, one that in time softened harsh memories of Ulysses S. Grant, Warren G. Harding, Ronald Reagan, and even Herbert Hoover and Richard Nixon. While he also attempts to track the great issues that have united and divided Republicans, Rutland paints with too broad a brush. In consequence, the serviceable, fast-moving text is longer on stereotypical epithets (anticommunist, isolationist, proBig Business, et al.) than illuminating perspectives. History in a hurry. (illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0826210902
• ISBN 13: 9780826210906
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 277