by Sean Wilentz (Author)Winner of the Bancroft Award, shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2005 and best book of New York magazine and The Economist. Acclaimed as the definitive study of the period by one of the greatest American historians, The Rise of American Democracy traces a historical arc from the earliest days of the republic to the opening shots of the Civil War "Remarkable . . . a book that befits its subject in artistry as well as scale." - Steven Hahn, Chicago Tribune "Confirms Sean Wilentz as the Richard Hofstadter of our day―the supreme political historian." - Franklin Foer, New York "A magisterial synthesis that deserves the attention of anyone interested in the American past." - Eric Foner, The Nation 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. About the Author SEAN WILENTZ is an American historian who serves as the George Henry Davis 1886 Professor of American History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979. His primary research interests include U.S. social and political history in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is the author of the Bancroft Prize–winning The Rise of American Democracy, Bob Dylan in America, No Property in Man: Slavery and Antislavery at the Nation's Founding, and many other works.