A Factious People: Politics and Society in Colonial New York (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780801456534)

First published in 1971 and long out of print, this classic account of Colonial-era New York chronicles how the state was buffeted by political and sectional rivalries and by conflict arising from a wide diversity of ethnic and religious identities. New York's highly volatile and contentious political life, Patricia U. Bonomi shows, gave rise to a number of interest groups for whose support political leaders had to compete, resulting in new levels of democratic participation.