Summary Of A Magnificent Catastrophe By Edward J. Larson

At the turn of the 18th century, America had faced a troubling election that would give them a very different experience than the previous elections. In the novel A Magnificent Catastrophe, Edward J Larson depicts the thrilling story of the election of 1800, an election that has, in essence, establish the political system that has since shaped the way modern politics is handled. Larson goes into depth on the political race that would establish the creation of a two-party system and inform the reader on the election that held the first real presidential campaign. In an intriguing tale of the clash between two completely different ideologies, Larson informs us on the drama and convulsions of the election of 1800. Demonstrating exactly how Vice

Thus some of the founding father would turn against each one another, making them bitter enemies. It turned once close friends, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams against each other and ultimately lead Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr to duel in order to settle their own disagreements. Larson would also recreate the experience of election and the constant uncertainty on both sides, with leads switching back and forth, and the both parties constantly working to get electoral votes. Even Congress would not be immune to the heat of the election, and it would hold many sessions in the time before Inauguration Day in order to resolve the crisis of the uncertainty left after the votes were cast. The contest between two very distinct political views would be so great that some of the participants would later call it “America’s second revolution”. Thus this bitter rematch of the previous election, would realign the political system and give way to the birth of the two-party system that we still hold in place today, destroying America’s dream of a rule by

Larson illustrates this by emphasizing the effects of bias in the press and importance of one’s background/religion. Similar to the recent election of 2016, extremely opinionated and bias things were published in newspapers. Callander, a writer who often bashed against Adams and was secretly funded by Jefferson. Jefferson secretly funded Callander because of his publishing that bashed Adams and the things like many large organizations and news places spread biased information that was usually very opinionated, and blown out of proportion, to try to get people to dislike certain candidates. Although not a tremendous underlying factor in the 1800 election, one thing that Larson explained was the point that Federalists believed that Jefferson was an Atheist, because he believed in a separation of church and state. Back then as well as now, religion is viewed as very important and many will even attempt to use this against a candidate.Just like they tried to say how Jefferson was Atheist and used that against him, many people did not like Bernie Sanders because he was Jewish. One of the reasons that Larson’s book was so good was because of the parallelism and how it was so