In this absorbing, brisk account, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Larson (Summer of the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion
) recreates the dramatic presidential race of 1800, which, Larson says, “stamped American democracy with its distinctive partisan character” as Republicans and Federalists battled for the presidency. Larson explains how a race between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson actually ended in a tie between Jefferson and his running mate, Aaron Burr. (The tie was resolved by Congress.) The bitter infighting and the sophisticated political jockeying of 1800 spelled the end of any idea that America would be governed by enlightened consensus, resulting instead in the two-party system we know today. Readers will find many similarities between the intense electioneering of Adams and Jefferson, and the heated political races of today. For instance, Larson delineates debates about security and the Alien and Sedition Acts, the complex calculus of the Electoral College and the ad hominem remarks of commentators. Larson's volume will join Susan Dunn's Jefferson's Second Revolution
as an invaluable study of a crucial chapter in the lives of the founding fathers—and of the nation. First serial to American History magazine.
(Sept. 18)
