Harvard University Press
The Embattled Vote in America: From the Founding to the Present
Key Metrics
- Allan J Lichtman
- Harvard University Press
- Paperback
- 9780674244818
- 7.9 X 5 X 1 inches
- 0.75 pounds
- History > United States - General
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
A sweeping look at the history of voting rights in the U.S.--Vox
Who has the right to vote? And who benefits from exclusion?
For most of American history, the right to vote has been a privilege restricted by wealth, sex, race, and literacy. Economic qualifications were finally eliminated in the nineteenth century, but the ideal of a white man's republic persisted long after that. Women and racial minorities had to fight hard and creatively to secure their voice, but voter identification laws, registration requirements, and voter purges continue to prevent millions of American citizens from voting.
An award-winning historian and voting right activist, Allan Lichtman gives us the history behind today's headlines. He shows that political gerrymandering and outrageous attempts at voter suppression have been a fixture of American democracy--but so have efforts to fight back and ensure that every citizen's voice be heard.
Lichtman uses history to contextualize the fix we're in today. Each party gropes for advantage by fiddling with the franchise... Growing outrage, he thinks, could ignite demands for change. With luck, this fine history might just help to fan the flame.
--New York Times Book Review
The great value of Lichtman's book is the way it puts today's right-wing voter suppression efforts in their historical setting. He identifies the current push as the third crackdown on African-American voting rights in our history.
--Michael Tomasky, New York Review of Books
Author Bio
Allan J. Lichtman received his PhD from Harvard University in 1973 with a specialty in modern American history and quantitative methods. He became an Assistant Professor of History at American University in 1973 and a Full Professor in 1980, and a Distinguished Professor in 2011.
He was the recipient of the Scholar/Teacher of the year award for 1992-93. He has published eleven books and several hundred popular and scholarly articles.
He has lectured in the US and internationally and provided commentary for major US and foreign networks and leading newspapers and magazines across the world. He has been an expert witness in some 100 civil and voting rights cases. His book, White Protestant Nation: The Rise of the American Conservative Movement was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in nonfiction. He co-authored book with Richard Breitman, FDR and the Jews, won the National Jewish Book Award Prize in American Jewish History and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times book prize in history.
His book, The Case for Impeachment was a national independent bookstore bestseller. Lichtman's prediction system, the Keys to the White House, has correctly predicted the outcomes of all US presidential elections since 1984. He was listed rise.global as # 85 among 100 most influential geopolitical experts in the world and received the lifetime achievement award from Who's Who.
Education
- BA, Brandeis University, Phi Beta Kappa, Magna Cum Laude, 1967
PhD, Harvard University, Graduate Prize Fellow, 1973
Source: American University, Washington, D.C.
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