Description: Rigorous in its scholarship and thoroughly readable, this book goes beyond history and analysis to provide compelling and much-needed insight into the ways voting rights legislation has shaped the United States. The Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act illuminates the historical roots--and the human consequences--of a critical chapter in U.S. legal history.
Brief description:
Keith Gåddie is Hoffman Chair of the American Ideal and Professor of Political Science at Texas Christian University, Fort Worth. His scholarship focuses on judicial architecture and the role of race in constructing meaning and affect in the public space. He has authored or coauthored more than twenty books, including Regulating Wetlands Protection, University of Georgia Football, The Triumph of Voting Rights in the South, The Rise and Fall of the Voting Rights Act, The U.S. Supreme Court's Democratic Spaces (with Jocelyn Evans), and the forthcoming Democracy's Meaning: How the Public Understands Democracy and Why It Matters (with Nicholas T. Davis and Kirby Goidel). He also coedits the journal Social Science Quarterly.
Review Quotes: "This comprehensive history of the Voting Rights Act traces the act's success in empowering racial minorities, the various interpretations of it by the Supreme Court, and changes to the law as Congress reauthorized it over the years. Although the full impact of the high court's Shelby County decision remains unclear, this excellent volume provides informed speculation on what the future may hold."--Thomas Brunell, author of Redistricting and Representation: Why Competitive Elections Are Bad for America