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The Age of Acrimony

How Americans Fought to Fix Their Democracy, 1865-1915

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The Age of Acrimony

By: Jon Grinspan
Narrated by: Johnny Heller
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Bloomsbury presents The Age of Acrimony by Jon Grinspan, read by Johnny Heller.

A penetrating, character-filled history “in the manner of David McCullough” (WSJ), revealing the deep roots of our tormented present-day politics.

Democracy was broken. Or that was what many Americans believed in the decades after the Civil War. Shaken by economic and technological disruption, they sought safety in aggressive, tribal partisanship. The results were the loudest, closest, most violent elections in U.S. history, driven by vibrant campaigns that drew our highest-ever voter turnouts. At the century’s end, reformers finally restrained this wild system, trading away participation for civility in the process. They built a calmer, cleaner democracy, but also a more distant one. Americans’ voting rates crashed and never fully recovered.

This is the origin story of the “normal” politics of the 20th century. Only by exploring where that civility and restraint came from can we understand what is happening to our democracy today.

The Age of Acrimony charts the rise and fall of 19th-century America’s unruly politics through the lives of a remarkable father-daughter dynasty. The radical congressman William “Pig Iron” Kelley and his fiery, Progressive daughter Florence Kelley led lives packed with drama, intimately tied to their nation’s politics. Through their friendships and feuds, campaigns and crusades, Will and Florie trace the narrative of a democracy in crisis. In telling the tale of what it cost to cool our republic, historian Jon Grinspan reveals our divisive political system’s enduring capacity to reinvent itself.©2021 Jon Grinspan (P)2021 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc Politics & Government American History United States Americas Politicians Politics & Activism Biographies & Memoirs Socialism
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Great reading on the salient parts of the people and systems that shows it's growth in today's chaotic political maelstrom.

Political Insights

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Political Turmoil we see today NOT New What is Fox / Facebook NOW !!

You Will Learn A Lot from this book

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Really appreciated the perspective that this book provides in interpreting current events. Well with the effort.

Makes present politics so much more understandable.

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A fantastic reflection of our close past to help guide and bolster us in our troubling present.

Great book

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To be honest, I didn’t find the personal narrative components of this overly compelling. That being said, it made me feel quite a bit better about the current state of our democracy and how we can get through this. I’d recommend this to anybody who’s feeling anxious and would like some added context about similar periods in the past.

Great Context for Our Current Period of Democracy

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