It’s not every day — it’s not every year — that a book appears that upends all the guiding historical views of the age. Then again, Jon Grinspan’s The Age of Acrimony is that rare disturbance in the waters of the historiography of 19th-century America. It is an engaging, inviting, and ultimately disruptive story of what happened between the assassination of Lincoln and the sinking of the Lusitania, though neither really serves as a bookend to Grinspan’s argument.

... isn’t a detailed narrative of the era’s political struggles or a political-science thesis with tables and graphs. The wondrous profusion of technological innovation and economic growth of the late 19th century is touched on, but without the robotic denunciations of 'robber barons' that permeate so many historians’ accounts. Mr. Grinspan’s focus is on practical politics, which in this period meant mass politics—the highest rates of voter turnout and mass participation in the nation‘s history..

... brisk, edifying.

This turbulent time in American politics is expertly captured by historian Grinspan.

... nuanced and engaging.

Grinspan vividly recreates the period’s tumults and personalities—he foregrounds the colorful father-daughter duo of Republican congressman William Kelley and Socialist activist Florence Kelley—while shrewdly analyzing its evolving culture of civic engagement, conveying it all in snappy, evocative prose. This immersive study shows how the form of politics profoundly shapes its content..

In a highly readable narrative, Grinspan also forges some unexpected connections—linking, for instance, the women’s enfranchisement movement (largely composed of White Protestant women) with a drive 'to offset the power of the working-class and increasingly foreign-born male electorate'.