The Origins of the Republican Party, 1852-1856

Gienapp's book, "The Origins of the Republican Party," is well researched but poorly written and hard to follow. In many instances, he fails to define many of the terms and names he uses, seemingly relying on the reader to bring to the table a foreknowledge of events. For example, the political party, the Silver Greys, is slipped in briefly but is never really defined in the whole scheme of things, as well as the "Softshells" and the "Hardshells," leaving the reader to ask: "Who are these people?" He also interchanges many political party names without first informing the reader that they are one and the same. Also, one aspect that is very evident, and unfortunate, is Gienapp's noticeable anti-Catholicism bend, especially in the first two chapters of the book. Lastly, be prepared to forgive many punctuation errors; whoever was the editor/proof reader must have been asleep (a red pen is a must while reading). Looking beyond these minor things, however, Gienapp definitely put a lot of research into this book, maybe a little too much. If you're looking for a focused, state-by-state, election-by-election, exhaustive (and exhausting) examination of the Republican Party between 1852-1856, then this is your book, but I don't recommend it for light reading.

Gienapp was my favorite professor as an undergrad at Harvard, but he never assigned this book for any of his classes. With a long flight ahead of me, I finally picked it up. It is so rare to find a weighty "academic" tome written so artfully. The voluminous citations do not detract from the book's readability. For someone interested in antebellum US political history, it is a MUST READ written by a man who, if there were any justice in the world, should be as familiar to the educated layman as such pop historians as Doris Kearns Goodwin and Ken Burns. It almost made me want to go back to grad school!!