“ Imagine a society in which parties dominate the political system. They select the candidates, articulate distinct ideologies, oversee the conduct of elections, virtually monopolize political communications, mobilize voters, organize legislatures, structure roll-call votes, and (more generally) determine the shape of public policy. . . . For those of us familiar with the parties of the 1990s, imagining such a political order strains our creative capacities. Yet only a century ago, the United States was such a society. And Joel Silbey’ s book brilliantly captures and recreates...

This work is a study of the role of local fiscal policies and fiscal politics in late 19th- and early 20th-century America. Using case materials drawn largely from Illinois, it focuses on decisions made by city governments to raise money through the sale or guarantee of bond issues on behalf of a variety of private and public enterprises from rail lines to water plants. This was part of a development strategy designed to attract population growth and capital investment. The study also examines the frequent pattern of debt repudiation, when projects went sour, and local administrations changed...

This is a detailed analysis and description of a unique era in American political history, one in which political parties were the dominant dynamic force at work structuring and directing the political world.

This book, offering the state-of-the-art in cultural/intellectual history today, examines some of the major problems and themes critical to the historical study of European culture. It explores the limits and capacities of historical consciousness in modernity and shares a concern with the ways in which cultural productions are connected to self and society.