The rise of an immensely powerful federal government in the twentieth century has tended to obscure the importance of state and local government in American history. Yet government at these lesser levels had the most direct and continuous effect on the lives of ordinary citizens. Through an analysis of late-nineteenth-century state legislatures in Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin, Ballard Campbell has written what one expert has called "the best book on legislative politics, past or present." The period he examines was one of rapid change and great challenge. Urbanization, industrialization,...