American Political Parties

TLDR: The authors developed a unique historical perspective of US political party development using the disagreements between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson as a framework for analysis, and used it for analysis of political parties in the United States.

Abstract: American Political Parties is a core textbook on political parties in the United States that places the US party system into a framework designed around the disagreements between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. White and Kerbel argue that the two-party system in the United States began with a common agreement on the key values of freedom, individual rights, and equality of opportunity but that Hamilton and Jefferson disagreed—often vehemently—over how to translate these ideals into an acceptable form of governance. This text develops a unique historical perspective of US party development using the disagreements between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson as a framework for analysis.