Political partisanship is not only a hallmark of US democracy today. There is also a long history of dysfunction and division as old as America. H.W. Brands’s new book, Founding Partisans, is a revelatory history of the Revolutionary era’s stormy politics, which includes a look at the nation’s earliest political parties — those of Hamilton and Jefferson — the federalists and the anti-federalists. It’s an ugly story for the most part, but one that can hold its head high for establishing another hallmark of democracy — the peaceful transfer of power.
