This three-volume set explores the multiple roles that parties and interest groups have played in American politics from the nation's beginnings to the present.

This set serves as an essential resource for analyzing the emergence and impact of parties and interest groups in the American political system and for understanding the systematic and structural bases for interest group and party behavior. Volume One opens with an introduction by the editors that provides a general overview of the eras and identifies important themes and events, laying a foundation on which the subsequent essays and primary documents for each interest group or political party builds.



Narrative essays focus on how specific parties or interest groups have shaped or reflect a particular set of events or general themes in each of the eras in American political history. Topical entries reflect key themes developed throughout the volumes. Entries range from important founding groups and parties to contemporary political action committees and policy advocacy groups. The set also includes primary source documents (e.g., letters, platform documents, court decisions, flyers, etc.) that reveal important dimensions of the corresponding group's political influence.









Provides expert analysis of the emergence and effect of parties and interest groups on the American political system



Offers a broader and more complete understanding of both parties and interest groups in American politics than has been offered previously



Helps readers to move beyond an event-driven knowledge of parties and interest groups to explore the systematic and structural bases for interest group and party behavior



Includes primary source documents that allow readers to discover for themselves the means by which groups or parties place items on the public agenda and thereby come to (or sometimes fail to) shape our governmental system