(Paperback)

Provides a comprehensive history of how Speakers have been elected in the US House since 1789, arguing that the organizational politics of these elections were critical to the construction of mass political parties in America and laid the groundwork for the role they play in setting the agenda of Congress today.

(Hardback)

Shows how the speakership began as a relatively weak office, and how votes for Speaker prior to the Civil War often favored regional interests over party loyalty. This title reveals how struggles over House organization prior to the Civil War were among the most consequential turning points in American political history.