The Electoral College and the American Idea of Democracy. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1977.

Composed in 1977 and published as a booklet by the American Enterprise Institute, this essay is a vigorous defense of our constitutional method of electing presidents through the partly-national, partly-federal Electoral College. Although it was initially intended as an immediate response to one of this century’s most determined efforts to scrap the College, it is, more broadly, an excellent summary of Diamond’s understanding of the subtlety and genius of American political institutions and the ends they serve—and an indictment of slipshod political analysis based on ignorance of those ends.

Online:
Electoral College History [pdf]
Abe Books