Election History

Over the last 30 years, the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies has grown from a small group of disaffected conservative law students into an organization with extraordinary influence over American law and politics. Although the organization is unknown to the average citizen, this group of intellectuals has managed to monopolize the selection of federal judges, take over the Department of Justice, and control legal policy in the White House.

With every presidential election, Americans puzzle over the peculiar mechanism of the Electoral College. The author of the Pulitzer finalist The Right to Vote explains the enduring problem of this controversial institution.

R.W Johnson’s best-selling How Long Will South Africa Survive? was hailed by financial writer Alec Hogg as 'a masterpiece in unblemished reality'. Published at the height of the Zuma presidency, it accurately forecast that South Africa’s credit rating would be downgraded to junk status. Johnson warned that this sorry progress might end in an IMF bailout and wholesale change to the political system.

Contrary to what is commonly believed, authoritarian leaders who agree to hold elections are generally able to remain in power longer than autocrats who refuse to allow the populace to vote. In this engaging and provocative audiobook, authors Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves.

In early 1860, pundits across America confidently predicted the election of Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas in the coming presidential race. Douglas, after all, led the only party that bridged North and South. But the Democrats would split over the issue of slavery, leading Southerners in the party to run their own presidential slate. This opened the door for the upstart Republicans, exclusively Northern, to steal the Oval Office. Dark horse Abraham Lincoln, not the first choice even of his own party, won the presidency with a record-low 39.8 percent of the popular vote.

Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, 12 have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and a lot of racists who don't want black women voting. And then there are the "Antis" - women who oppose their own enfranchisement, fearing suffrage will bring about the moral collapse of the nation.

In US Presidential Elections and Foreign Policy, a team of international scholars examines how the relationship between foreign policy and electoral politics evolved through the latter half of the 20th century. Covering all presidential elections from 1940 to 1992 - from debates over American entry into World War II to the aftermath of the Cold War - the contributors correct the conventional wisdom that domestic issues and the economy are always definitive.

In November 2012, Americans went to the polls to make yet another historic decision. Their choice was to reelect the nation's first African-American president or to elect the first Mormon president. Obama faced one of the least conventional Republican politicians the country ever had. From his Mormon faith to his governorship of the very blue Massachusetts, Mitt Romney left many on the right wondering whether he possessed the traditional conservative values they deemed necessary.

For five long years in the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy and his anti-Communist crusade dominated the American scene, terrified politicians, and destroyed the lives of thousands of our citizens. In this masterful history, Haynes Johnson re-creates that time of crisis. Johnson tells this monumental story through the lens of its relevance to our own time, when fear again affects American behavior and attitudes.

As the 2020 presidential campaign begins to take shape, there is widespread distrust of the fairness and accuracy of American elections. In this timely and accessible book, Richard L. Hasen uses riveting stories illustrating four factors increasing the mistrust. Voter suppression has escalated as a Republican tool aimed to depress turnout of likely Democratic voters, fueling suspicion. Pockets of incompetence in election administration, often in large cities controlled by Democrats, have created an opening to claims of unfairness.

How does the president get his job? How do people know who will win an election before everybody’s voted? Do the candidates hate each other? Dan Gutman takes on his strangest subject ever: the American political system. Reaching through history from the days of the founding fathers to today’s voting system, Gutman tackles complex subjects in a clear, easy-to-understand way. Even grown-ups will find something in here that they’ve never learned before.

It was an age of fascinating leaders and difficult choices, of grand ideas eloquently expressed and of epic conflicts bitterly fought. Now comes a brilliant portrait of the American Revolution, one that is compelling in its prose, fascinating in its details, and provocative in its fresh interpretations.

The 1960 presidential election between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon is one of the most frequently described political events of the 20th century, yet the accounts to date have been remarkably unbalanced. Far more attention is given to Kennedy's side than to Nixon's.

Despair and mourning after the election of an antagonistic or polarizing president, such as Donald Trump, is part of the push-pull of American politics. But in this incisive audiobook, historian Mary Frances Berry shows that resistance to presidential administrations has led to positive change and the defeat of outrageous proposals, even in challenging times.

In the United States, politics has become increasingly nationalized in recent years as voter decision-making is now driven by partisan or national political forces rather than the attributes of individual candidates. Indeed, voters now seem more concerned with which of the two national parties will be in power across all levels of government as opposed to which candidate will represent them individually. Nationalized Politics asks and answers the question, "how has nationalization influenced elections across different political eras?"

In this sweeping look at American politics from the Depression to the present, Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos argue that party politics alone is not responsible for the mess we find ourselves in. Instead, it was the ongoing interaction of social movements and parties that, over time, pushed Democrats and Republicans toward their ideological margins, undermining the post-war consensus in the process.

In The Stranger, NBC Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd draws upon his unprecedented inner-circle sources to create a gripping account of Obama's tumultuous White House years. In doing so, not only does Todd give us the most revealing portrait yet of this fascinating president and his struggles, but illuminates what "Obamism" really is, what the president stands for, and how his decisions have changed - and will change - American politics for generations.

In The Center Holds: Obama and His Enemies, Jonathan Alter uses his unmatched access and deep knowledge of politics and history to produce the first full account of America at the crossroads. He pierces the bubble of the White House and of the presidential campaigns with exclusive reporting and rare historical insight. More than a campaign book, this is the epic story of an embattled president facing a historic moment he considered more pivotal than 2008.

O PT se apresentava como um partido que lutava nas ruas e nas portas das fábricas, nas igrejas e nas universidades pregando ética e justiça social. No que ele se transformou após mais de uma década de exercício contínuo de poder? José de Souza Martins, um dos mais importantes cientistas sociais brasileiros, enfrenta essa questão com coragem e objetividade. O audiolivro vai desvendando o PT por meio de passagens que acompanham a trajetória do partido, do início aos dias de hoje. Audiolivro esclarecedor, apaixonado e apaixonante.

American democracy is at an impasse. After years of zero-sum partisan trench warfare, our political institutions are deteriorating. Our norms are collapsing. Democrats and Republicans no longer merely argue; they cut off contact with each other. In short, the two-party system is breaking our democracy, and driving us all crazy.