Wilentz’s verdict, fortified by examples from Jefferson to Jefferson Davis, and from Grover Cleveland presumably through the conventions in July: Partisanship is not only good, it is also productive. Who knew? ... In the course of all this Wilentz sets forth a provocative idea that may provide vital perspective to the politics of this very year.
I wish Wilentz had made his point with greater modesty. The subtitle of his book includes the word 'hidden' and the first sentence the word 'secrets,' as if Wilentz alone sees clearly what is obscure to everyone else. Yet the 'keys' to understanding American politics he uncovers are strikingly mundane: Political parties are important, and so is economic inequality ... The oddity here is that if Wilentz really believes that 'the issue of economic equality has been the great perennial question in American political history,' and if he also wishes to develop in his audience an appreciation for our political parties, why would he tackle those themes with a string of loosely stitched, previously published essays, many of them book reviews?
Wilentz finds in America’s founding a deep commitment to egalitarianism, and while this engrossing and deeply enriching book is both history and argument, much of it is devoted to the long struggle for that equality that John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Paine, and a surprising number of the Founders embraced, at least rhetorically ... Unless you’re a professional scholar, much of what Wilentz describes will be like discovering a rich new dessert ... he wants you to understand is that Hillary Clinton was right: Social movements are important in establishing awareness of problems and a demand for solutions. But the solutions come not merely from demands but from effective political action...That point having been made, however, Wilentz's further argument — his case for stronger parties — begins to slip.
Much of The Politicians & the Egalitarians is an attack on 'postpartisans.' The other, less developed theme of Wilentz’s new book is economic inequality. 'The driving force in American political history has been the effort to curb the power of concentrated wealth, whether the power of the slaveholders or the power of industrial plutocrats,' he writes. Wilentz has few original ideas on this subject, however, and it almost seems like an afterthought to him ... Still, it is a pleasure to be in the hands of an individual who can write compellingly about such a range of American history. Reading The Politicians & the Egalitarians, one comes away with the sense that historical debates matter.
For those readers eager to be introduced to Wilentz’s work, The Politicians & the Egalitarians is a good place to start. Preponderantly drawn from Wilentz’s writing for journals including the New York Review of Books and the New Republic, the book suggests the range of the author’s interests and his command of more than two centuries of American history ... Should Hillary Clinton take office next year, it is not at all impossible that we will hear the new president espousing this approach to executive power.
