Julian E. Zelizer's Reading List

"David Mayhew is one of the great political scientists in America; he teaches at Yale and he’s written a number of very important books on Congress. America’s Congress is always one of my favorites. Mayhew believes that Congress has had a much more active and influential history than is commonly believed. Accessible for lay people and experts alike, the book does a really nice job of creating categories of the different types of “actions” that members of Congress have done since the start of the country. He captured some of Congress’s great characters like Robert Wagner, a member of Congress during the 1930s. Mayhew methodically shows that many of the ideas that become the New Deal came from Wagner, rather than from President Roosevelt; he astutely notes that Roosevelt could be seen as the person who signed Senator Wagner’s bills. Most important, he shows that there are very different ways to be a “member” of Congress, and over the course of history, legislators have taken a large variety of approaches to employing congressional power. Congress: The Electoral Connection engrained a fundamental fact about Congress: A lot of what members do is react to what’s going on in their districts to make sure that they’re going to be reelected. It’s a fundamental fact, but one we have to remember as we try to figure out why different members are doing what they do on our big issues. Using rational choice, Mayhew opened up the basic dynamic that guided legislative behavior (though he has greatly broadened his scope over time). Divided We Govern is also a fantastic book; it went against the conventional wisdom that when you have divided government, when Congress is controlled by one party and the presidency is held by the other party, you get gridlock. Mayhew shows that, historically, that’s not true. It is classic Mayhew: take something we all think to be true and shatter the myth. In periods of divided government, like the early 1970s, for example, a lot of important legislation often comes out of the institution. Mayhew also wrote a terrific book on party realignment . Conventional wisdom held that when elections brought to power new coalitions the politics and policies of Congress changed; the classic example cited was the election of 1932. He showed this theory was overblown. In most of his books, he takes on conventional wisdom and undercuts what we thought we knew about Congress. His most basic contribution was to show that while we think of Congress as a dysfunctional, do-nothing institution, it’s actually just the opposite."

"Schickler is a historical political scientist; he uses archives, just like a historian does. He pioneered a way of writing about congressional history from a political scientist’s point of view. He offers some of the best analytical work that we have on the institution. He shows that to understand Congress, you can’t just look at political moment. Disjointed Pluralism looks at different periods of congressional reform—such as the early 20th century, and the 1970s—and shows that during periods of reform, we usually don’t get rid of the system that came before. Reforms are layered on top of other reforms. We keep building and bandaging the system. “Reforms are layered on top of other reforms. We keep building and bandaging the system” It’s a great history of congressional reform, and it has this compelling explanation of why we have the system that we built. Whereas many political scientists tried to find single causal arguments to explain what motivates reformers in any given period, Schickler takes on a more historical approach by bringing forward the multiplicity of objectives in any given moment, which explains why different outcomes of reform often have contradictory effects. His is an understanding of the different motivations built into any period of reform, and the essential messiness of what is left behind. The way Congress works is not set in stone. The Constitution doesn’t lay out the organization of Congress beyond the basic qualifications for election and the bicameral system of a Senate (with two members per state) and a House (with representation apportioned based on population). Moreover, congressional committees are not in the Constitution, but they are crucial to how Congress does its business. You won’t find the filibuster in the Constitution: it was created as a way of dealing with problems in the Senate while allowing the minority’s voice to be heard. Because many of the nuts and bolts of congressional procedure are left to the parties and to the institution, Congress changes at different points in time. Can an average member propose amendments to legislation or just party leaders? Answers to questions like that are subject to shifting norms. That is why Schickler is so right: you have to go back decades, if not centuries, to understand the institution. At any given moment, you can see many layers that were put into place in previous eras."

"It’s a great, great, great book. It’s one of those single point contributions that is nevertheless really important and really eye-opening. The book’s point is that in the nineteenth century, Congress was an incredibly contentious place. Today, we think the parties can’t get along, but back in the nineteenth century, tensions were so severe that members were physically fighting on the floor of Congress. They had weapons. American schoolchildren learn the famous story of southerner Preston Brooks caning abolitionist Charles Sumner on the floor of the U.S. Senate over slavery, but we’re taught it was an anomaly. Freeman shows that level of brutality was commonplace in Congress during the time surrounding the Civil War. Tensions over slavery brought Congress to the point of total dysfunction by the middle of the nineteenth century. The book is well-written, and it brings Congress to life through these stories. She opens up an understanding of the violent nature of life on the floor in these decades that has generally been left out of the history books. Freeman conveys the flavor of the floor in a way very few other people can—that’s why I put the book on the list. Are tensions in Congress a product of larger problems or the cause of them? You can’t really disentangle the two. That’s something that’s true throughout American history. When there’s fighting in Congress, whether it’s physical fighting or just partisan fighting, it often reflects tension that exist outside the Capitol. So, it’s important to always put Congress in the context of the moment you’re studying. In the period Freeman writes about in The Field of Blood , the tension on the floor reflects broader sectional tensions that were tearing the union apart."

"I always tell people that this is one of the first books you should read if you’re really interested in congressional history. It’s a wonderful book, the third part of Caro’s multi-volume biography of President Lyndon Johnson that focuses on his time as Senate Majority Leader. It’s also a splendid history of the Senate itself. He has a section that takes you through the Senate’s organization, showing the power individual Senators always had in that institution, and some of the weaknesses parties had because of its design. He explains all the arcana, such as where the filibuster comes from and why is it so essential to understanding how the upper chamber works. He lays out that history so the reader can see how Lyndon Johnson reorganizes the Democratic Party to overcome fragmentation. Johnson amassed his own power by starting to bring the Senate under greater control. So, as you read a riveting narrative of the individual you come to understand the Congress. Caro uses his tools as a journalist and a general nonfiction writer, like Joanne Freeman, to brings the institution alive. It’s not just roll call votes; it’s real people, real conflicts, and real drama. This is incredibly difficult to do. As I said, Congress is not an institution that naturally lends itself to a crisp narrative. This is what makes his achievement so remarkable. You can make an argument that Mitch McConnell is as—if not more—important than President Trump. To borrow Mayhew’s quip about Senator Wagner and FDR, McConnell finally found a president who would send him his judges and tax cut legislation. The Republican Party’s protection of President Trump is thanks to McConnell. McConnell has tight control over the Senate. He has run the majority in a very disciplined and very ruthless fashion. He has made sure, up until now at least, that members don’t defect because of any happiness they have with the president. And because of McConnell’s control, we’ve seen consequential changes under his command, most dramatically with the federal courts. So, McConnell is someone we will focus on in congressional history and someone who will be remembered as incredibly consequential."