Book Reviews : The American Democratic Tradition: A History. By ARTHUR A. EKIRCH, JR. (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1963. Pp. ix, 338. $5.95 cloth; $2.50 paper.)

• Author: Clyde E. Jacobs
• Published date: 01 December 1964
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296401700431
• Date: 01 December 1964
• Subject Matter: Articles

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ences to radio and television are the only exceptions. The book would be almost
no help to a scholar interested in the David, Goldman, Bain approach to national
party conventions.
The historical scholar will also find little of value in it. I am not an enthusiast
about footnotes, but here their complete absence gives one an uncertain feeling about
many of the numerous interpretations in the book. Are we following a newspaper
account, or a careful historian, or a poor autobiographer, or Mr. Eaton’s personal
interpretation? With rare exceptions, the reader is left completely in the dark as to
the source of the assertions.
There is no noticeable bias in the accounts of the earlier conventions. It is clear
that Mr. Eaton has strong leanings towards F.D.R. and Stevenson in more recent
decades, but this affection does not detract much from the usefulness of the book.
The real difficulty is the complete lack of source citations. An interesting book could
have been made a useful book with the addition of some scholarly discipline.
GEORGE C. S. BENSON
Claremont Men’s College
The American Democratic Tradition: A History. By ARTHUR A. EKIRCH, JR. (New
York: The Macmillan Co., 1963. Pp. ix, 338. $5.95 cloth; $2.50 paper.)
The purpose of the author is to present, within the limits of a single and rela-
tively short volume, a survey and an analysis of both the idea and practice of Ameri-
can democracy. In his preface Dr. Ekirch, who is a professor of history at American
University, states that the &dquo;present work is designed to meet the need for a history
of American democracy considered in terms of social theory and ideas as well as of
political practice and reality.&dquo; In the first of the twelve chapters into which the book
is divided the author discusses the development of democratic ideals and institutions
in the American colonies and in his final chapter he considers the principles, prac-
tices, and paradoxes of democracy during the cold war. Thus he essays a...