PEOPLE POWER.(The Rise of American Democracy)

In 1938, if you had a dollar and seventy-two cents, you could buy a copy of "The Rise of American Democracy," a seven-hundred-page hardcover about the size of a biggish Bible or a Boy Scout handbook. While a Bible's worth is hard to measure, the Scout guide, at fifty cents, was an awfully good bargain, and was, in any case, the book you'd most like to have if you were shipwrecked somewhere, not least because it included the chapter "How to Make Fire Without Matches." But "The Rise of American Democracy" promised, invaluably, "to make clear how Americans have come to live and to believe as they do." It was also a quick read. "A Simple Book," its ad copy boasted. ...