Presidential elections often serve as periodic demarcations from one historical epoch to another. 1876 has often been seen as the beginning of the Gilded Age. This roundtable episode brings together leading scholars of American law and politics to discuss the virtues and vices of this approach with the aim of determining if we can make sense of American political history from the Gilded Age to the present.

Essential Reading:

Richard Slotkin, A Great Disorder: National Myth and the Battle for America (2024).

Cynthia Nicoletti, Secession on Trial: The Treason Prosecution of Jefferson Davis (2017).

Recommended Reading:

Heather Cox Richardson, "Reconstruction and the Gilded Age and Progressive Era" in A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (2017).

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