Anomalies in red and blue: Exceptionalism in American electoral geography

Red and Blue America has become the spatial metaphor for an electoral divide on two main dimensions – a nonmetropolitan Red and a larger metropolitan Blue, and a traditionalist Red and a more modern Blue. In this paper, we evaluate the validity and consistency of this conventional wisdom, using both the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections results by county. While previous research has underscored the overall pattern and its accuracy, we choose instead to explore mainly the anomalous results: “metropolitan” or “modern” areas that President Bush carried, and “nonmetropolitan” and “traditional” areas that Democrats won. We develop a typology of the anomalous counties and carry out a simple analysis of characteristics that help show how and why they are anomalous. We then compare the 2000 and 2004 results to discover anomalous areas, counties which switched parties or which became more or less partisan. Trends between 2000 and 2004 suggest a weakening of the metropolitan and nonmetropolitan dimension but a deepening of the cultural one, although we note as well that most of the electorate does not place itself at these partisan extremes. We relate these findings to longer term structural changes in American society, and to Republican strategies to mobilize insecure voters. Finally, we lay out an agenda to look at a sample of counties, using qualitative methods, in order to understand these anomalous results.     

Before Columbia: The FWP and American Oral History Research

This article compares and contrasts the approaches of the NewDeal Federal Writers' Project and the Columbia Oral HistoryProgram in an effort to reconsider the paradoxical history oforal history research in the United States and its relationshipto how many oral historians today look at their work and thehistory of their field. As it turns out, the theoretical andsocial concerns of the FWP projects are closer to current theoreticalconcerns of oral historians than the work Allan Nevins conductedin the early years of the Columbia project. The article alsoshows how awareness of the history of the intellectual and culturalcurrents that affect oral history projects in general, and theFWP's work in particular—interviews with former slaves,tenant farmers, industrial workers, and members of ethnic minorities—canhelp us analyze and use those materials. It argues that an awarenessof continuity and discontinuity in the history of oral historymakes it possible for today's oral historians to have a productivedialogue with their predecessors in the field.     

"美国例外论"和工运史研究

"美国例外论"(American exceptionalism)是美国史研究中一个值得重视的课题.不仅因为它作为一项研究已存在了近一个世纪,涉及众多的领域,而且因为它开启了对美国和其它西方国家政治、经济、文化等方面,尤其是对国际社会主义运动和工人运动史的比较性研究,触及了对美国实质的认识.西方尤其美国许多著名学者参与了这项研究.然而,我国学者对此没有专门的研究,一般性的介绍也很少,即使涉及时也只是简单地视其为一种谬论或偏见①.鉴于此,本文对这方面的情况作一些介绍和评论,不当之处恳请指教.     

The State of American Political Science

Ada W. Finifter (ed.), Political Science: The State of the Discipline, Washington D.C.: American Political Science Assocaition, 1983.     

The State Legislature in American History: A Review Essay

Abstract

The author discusses a very rich resource for studying the Great Depression: the Censuses of Manufactures from 1929, 1931, 1933, and 1935. He highlights the strengths and weaknesses of this source in terms of the information available on the schedules and the quality of the data. In terms of information collected, these censuses compare favorably with the modern Census of Manufactures with some limitations. The author also draws on some published studies to argue that the records held at the National Archives are (in general) complete enumerations of the establishments existing at the time. He then conducts tests for the presence of measurement error and finds a limited role.     

The State of the Union: Sexuality in American History

Books reviewed in this article: Merril D. Smith (ed.), Sex and Sexuality in Early America Beryl Satter, Each Mind a Kingdom: American Women, Sexual Purity, and the New Thought Movement, 1875–1920 Sharon R. Ullman, Sex Seen: The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America M. E. Melody and Linda M. Peterson, Teaching America about Sex: Marriage Guides and Sex Manuals from the Late Victorians to Dr Ruth