Patricia Bonomi. A Factious People. 1970

This book is a history of early New York from Leisler's Rebellion to the American Revolution. Bonomi examines the origins of political factionalism in New York and rejects the notion that class struggle was the root of the problem. Instead, she places primacy on politics motivated by ethnic differences, random growth in politics at the local level, an upstate-downstate split, and the divergent interests of merchants and laborers. The factious environment was created by these factors along with patterns of settlement along the Hudson River, waves of immigrants, and the lack of a colonial assembly. New York's political system was, by 1760, sophisticated but fractured.