The Divided Mind of American Liberalism

The Divided Mind of American Liberalism PDF Author: James R. Hurtgen
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739103203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The Divided Mind of American Liberalism reveals the crisis at the heart of modern American liberalism. James Hurtgen's historical narrative traces the liberal movement through three periods of reform: the progressive movement, the New Deal, and the Great Society. Drawing on the views of political activists, presidents, and theorists the work examines the tensions that resulted in the ideological disunion--based on deep and lasting divisions over the desirability of centralized political power--of the communitarian "decentralists" and individualist "modernist" wings of the liberal movement. It documents how a "modernist" willingness to accept properly reformed, nationally exercised power held sway through much of the century only to be supplanted in the sixties and early seventies by "decentralists," champions of local government as the ideal political unit. This superb study demonstrates the central role liberalism has played in modern American political development and lays bare a liberal movement thrown into crisis by competing theories of social order.

A Fierce Discontent

A Fierce Discontent PDF Author: Michael McGerr
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439136033
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 428

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Book Description
The Progressive Era, a few brief decades around the turn of the last century, still burns in American memory for its outsized personalities: Theodore Roosevelt, whose energy glinted through his pince-nez; Carry Nation, who smashed saloons with her axe and helped stop an entire nation from drinking; women suffragists, who marched in the streets until they finally achieved the vote; Andrew Carnegie and the super-rich, who spent unheard-of sums of money and became the wealthiest class of Americans since the Revolution. Yet the full story of those decades is far more than the sum of its characters. In Michael McGerr's A Fierce Discontent America's great political upheaval is brilliantly explored as the root cause of our modern political malaise. The Progressive Era witnessed the nation's most convulsive upheaval, a time of radicalism far beyond the Revolution or anything since. In response to the birth of modern America, with its first large-scale businesses, newly dominant cities, and an explosion of wealth, one small group of middle-class Americans seized control of the nation and attempted to remake society from bottom to top. Everything was open to question -- family life, sex roles, race relations, morals, leisure pursuits, and politics. For a time, it seemed as if the middle-class utopians would cause a revolution. They accomplished an astonishing range of triumphs. From the 1890s to the 1910s, as American soldiers fought a war to make the world safe for democracy, reformers managed to outlaw alcohol, close down vice districts, win the right to vote for women, launch the income tax, take over the railroads, and raise feverish hopes of making new men and women for a new century. Yet the progressive movement collapsed even more spectacularly as the war came to an end amid race riots, strikes, high inflation, and a frenzied Red scare. It is an astonishing and moving story. McGerr argues convincingly that the expectations raised by the progressives' utopian hopes have nagged at us ever since. Our current, less-than-epic politics must inevitably disappoint a nation that once thought in epic terms. The New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, the Great Society, and now the war on terrorism have each entailed ambitious plans for America; and each has had dramatic impacts on policy and society. But the failure of the progressive movement set boundaries around the aspirations of all of these efforts. None of them was as ambitious, as openly determined to transform people and create utopia, as the progressive movement. We have been forced to think modestly ever since that age of bold reform. For all of us, right, center, and left, the age of "fierce discontent" is long over.

The Progressive Era

The Progressive Era PDF Author: Lewis L. Gould
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Progressivism (United States politics)
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description


In Search of Progressive America

In Search of Progressive America PDF Author: Michael Kazin
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812209095
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
Nearly every recent poll finds that most voters agree with views historically labeled as liberal: a hike in the minimum wage, government-mandated health insurance for every American, stronger gun control laws, broader sex education programs, laws that would make it easier for unions to organize, and the use of diplomacy instead of war to combat terrorism. But as a conservative presidential administration exits, how can progressives step into the breach? In Search of Progressive America presents ten essays by journalists, academics, and government insiders that address the current state of promise and debate within the Left in U.S. politics. The political atmosphere that confronts progressives still poses challenges, and the authors propose thoughtful ways to create a new political order by building an inclusive, durable coalition. The collection covers several of the most significant aspects of American political life. Matthew Yglesias, Andrew Bacevich, and Gary Gerstle offer three sober evaluations of the United States in world affairs and the impact of the world on American minds. Next, Todd Gitlin and Andrew Rich examine the struggle to control the messages of politics, through the mainstream media and think tanks, respectively. Ezra Klein, Dean Baker, Karen Kornbluh, and Nelson Lichtenstein each call for major changes in domestic policy grounded in both history and common sense. Finally, Michael Kazin recalls the era when Christian activists were found more often on the left than on the right and argues that a second coming of religious progressivism might be possible today.

America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1917

America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1917 PDF Author: Lewis L. Gould
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000342018
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
Now in its second edition, America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1917 provides a readable, analytical narrative of the emergence, influence, and decline of the spirit of progressive reform that animated American politics and culture around the turn of the twentieth century. Covering the turbulent 1890s to the American entry into World War I, the text examines the political, social, and cultural events of a period which set the agenda for American public life during the remainder of the twentieth century. This new edition places progressivism in a transatlantic context and gives more attention to voices outside the mainstream of party politics. Key features include: A clear account of the continuing debate in the United States over the role of government, citizenship, and the pursuit of social justice A full examination of the impact of reform on women and minorities A rich selection of documents that allow the historical actors to communicate with today’s readers An extensive, updated bibliography providing a valuable guide to additional reading and research Based on the most recent scholarship and written to be read by students, this book will be of interest to students of American History and Political History.

Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era

Gender, Class, Race, and Reform in the Progressive Era PDF Author: Noralee Frankel
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813148529
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
In this collection of informative essays, Noralee Frankel and Nancy S. Dye bring together work by such notable scholars as Ellen Carol DuBois, Alice Kessler-Harris, Barbara Sicherman, and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn to illuminate the lives and labor of American women from the late nineteenth century to the early 1920s. Revealing the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, and social class, the authors explore women's accomplishments in changing welfare and labor legislation; early twentieth century feminism and women's suffrage; women in industry and the work force; the relationship between family and community in early twentieth-century America; and the ways in which African American, immigrant, and working-class women contributed to progressive reform. This challenging collection not only displays the dramatic transformations women of all classes experienced, but also helps construct a new scaffolding for progressivism in general.

A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era

A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era PDF Author: Christopher McKnight Nichols
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119775701
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
A Companion to the Gilded Age and Progressive Era presents a collection of new historiographic essays covering the years between 1877 and 1920, a period which saw the U.S. emerge from the ashes of Reconstruction to become a world power. The single, definitive resource for the latest state of knowledge relating to the history and historiography of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era Features contributions by leading scholars in a wide range of relevant specialties Coverage of the period includes geographic, social, cultural, economic, political, diplomatic, ethnic, racial, gendered, religious, global, and ecological themes and approaches In today’s era, often referred to as a “second Gilded Age,” this book offers relevant historical analysis of the factors that helped create contemporary society Fills an important chronological gap in period-based American history collections

Change for America

Change for America PDF Author: Mark Green
Publisher: Hachette UK
ISBN: 0465013945
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 704

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Book Description
"Mark Green and Michele Jolin look to 2009 as the beginning of an era of renewal and progressive governance in America. Change for America presciently and insightfully offers specific ideas for what our next President can do to revitalize our nation and restore our standing abroad." -- President Bill Clinton It was an election about change, but how will that change actually happen? The result of a collaboration between the Center for American Progress Action Fund (the advocacy arm of Washington's leading-edge progressive think-tank led) and the New Democracy Project's Mark Green, this comprehensive volume is written by over sixty leading policymakers, scholars and advocates. Based on four core values -- of democracy, security through diplomacy, opportunity and a greener world -- Change for America offers scores of solutions how to repair our broken government and create an enduring progressive era. "The Center for American Progress Action Fund and Mark Green have assembled some of our nation's best minds, and their best ideas, into a book is packed with innovative, practical, and progressive solutions that will help take America in a New Direction." -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi "These thoughtful essays offer a progressive way forward for the vast majority of Americans who hope their government works for the many, not just the few." -- Senator Ted Kennedy "We don't just need a transition -- we need a transformation. Mark Green and Michele Jolin's encyclopedia of change offers a brilliant roadmap for the 44th President." -- Senator John Kerry "This is one of the most important books to be published this year. It's a handbook for restoring the New Deal's social compact with our citizens over the first '100 Days' and the next 1360." -- James Roosevelt, Jr. "Change for America is brilliant, timely and practical and teems with hard earned wisdom and common sense." -- Michael Eric Dyson

American Women in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920

American Women in the Progressive Era, 1900-1920 PDF Author: Dorothy Schneider
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 9780385472838
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description


Women in the Workplace

Women in the Workplace PDF Author: Dorothy Schneider
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The scope is confined to women's paid work, excluding contributions made on the home front. A 16-page introduction chronicling the history of women and work in America is followed by entries in A-Z arrangement, each with see also references and at least one bibliographic citation. Most entries are biographical, but others discuss issues, themes, categories of work, or organizations and institutions, e.g. academic women, apprentices, architects, artists, sexual harassment, nontraditional occupations, White House Conference on Children (1909). This reference is useful in particular for access to information about some lesser known important women. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Divided Mind of American Liberalism

The Divided Mind of American Liberalism PDF Author: James R. Hurtgen
Publisher: Lexington Books
ISBN: 9780739103203
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Divided Mind of American Liberalism reveals the crisis at the heart of modern American liberalism. James Hurtgen's historical narrative traces the liberal movement through three periods of reform: the progressive movement, the New Deal, and the Great Society. Drawing on the views of political activists, presidents, and theorists the work examines the tensions that resulted in the ideological disunion--based on deep and lasting divisions over the desirability of centralized political power--of the communitarian "decentralists" and individualist "modernist" wings of the liberal movement. It documents how a "modernist" willingness to accept properly reformed, nationally exercised power held sway through much of the century only to be supplanted in the sixties and early seventies by "decentralists," champions of local government as the ideal political unit. This superb study demonstrates the central role liberalism has played in modern American political development and lays bare a liberal movement thrown into crisis by competing theories of social order.