Extract

The Most Exclusive Club, Lewis L. Gould's popular history of the modern Senate, is just that, a popular history, with all the virtues and limitations that genre entails. The narrative is engaging, informative, and covers a lot of ground. By and large, the author successfully weaves particulars about the Senate into the fabric of American history. In fact, the book can be read as a selective history of American politics in the twentieth century with a focus on the Senate. Gould mentions nearly all the key events and does not dwell long on any one topic.

In this sometimes breathless flurry of events and personalities, there is, however, little room for analysis; or to be more precise, there is a significant gap between the story Gould tells and some of the claims he makes. Gould begins with some points, both minor and major, about what he had discovered. On the minor scale, Gould notes that alcohol and its abuse figure throughout. But is this particular to the Senate and why is it important to the story? Gould's major theme is his disappointment with the modern Senate and its “failings over the last century” (p. ix). It is in service of that theme that the gap between claim and text is widest. If, as Gould argues, the modern Senate has not lived up to the founders' expectations, did it ever? He presents no evidence or insight on this score. He cites cases of the Senate apparently fumbling the constitutional ball, but judged on what basis? Referring to the Senate's support for President Ronald Reagan's fiscal policies, for example, Gould argues that the Senate “abandoned its role as a brake on unwise ideas” (p. 279). Similarly glib pronouncements appear with some regularity. That the Senate produced policies or outcomes of which Gould or history disapproves is no indication of whether that institution has lived up to its founding purpose, which is not a self-evident concept. The founders saddled the Senate with a bundle of potentially contradictory purposes, including representing states and being the republican steward of national policy.

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