Description
Book SynopsisArgues that it was the working people's interest in equitable access to the country's most obvious asset - land - that led them to advocate a federal Homestead Act granting land to the landless, state legislation to prohibit the foreclosure of family farms, and antimonopolistic limitations on land ownership.
Trade Review"Recommended."--
Choice "His method of tracing links between apparently distinct movements has the potential to alter conventional assumptions about nineteenth-century politics and reform. His book is welcome invitation to look at the landscape afresh… Lause makes a sound case for the progressive character of these ideals, points out subsequent developments that consigned those ideals to obscurity, and explains why they have been disregarded,"--
Journal of American History "Lause once again does a great job of showing the depth of political currents during this period. He demonstrates the link between antebellum land reform ideals and the rise of post-bellum radicalism, and carries the political history of period beyond the constraints of sectional strife."--
Left History
