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The HISTORY NEWS NETWORK (http://hnn.us) recorded this appearance of Sean Wilentz at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians on March 31, 2007.
Mr. Wilentz, a professor of history at Princeton, is the author of The Rise of American Democracy. His book was the subject of a panel at the OAH.
Part 1 of Mr. Wilentz's Presentation
Note that Wilentz argues that something did indeed happen between the end of the Revolutionary period and the beginning of the Civil War that profoundly transformed America. Gee! What do we have here. First of all, we have someone willing to characterize an era as "distinct" from a previous era (as opposed to measuring it against an absurd idealistic "norm"): this requires of the speaker that they then characterize the previous era and explain what took place that transformed that era into something entirely different. This requires not only thought, but great atention to factual detail. Moreover, it involves presenting actual IDEAS!