The Promise of American Life - Softcover

Croly, Herbert

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1560006285 ISBN 13: 9781560006282

Publisher: Routledge, 1993

Synopsis

The Promise of American Life was first published in 1909. It had an immediate and extensive influence on what social historians call the Progressive Era. At the dawn of the New Deal Era, Felix Frankfurter wrote that Croly's book became "a reservoir for all political writings after its publication. Roosevelt's New Nationalism was countered by Wilson's New Freedom, but both derived from Croly."

While this may have been hyperbole, it is also a reflection of the impact The Promise made on intellectuals coming of age in the days of doubt and hope just before the Fust World War. Arthur Schlesinger Jr., calls this book "a substantive and sensitive essay on the American political experience, worth examination not just for historical reasons but on its continuing merits as a diagnosis of the American condition."

Croly himself summarizes the work thus: "From the beginning the land of democracy has been figured as the land of promise. The American's loyalty to the national tradition rather affirms than denies the imaginative projection of a better future." Croly's book can be viewed as both an affirmation and critique of how the idea of progress works its way out in American life. And reading it at the end of the century only reaffirms one's sense of appreciation of the American tradition as a whole.

The technology and science may be different, but the themes covered by Croly show an astonishing continuity of value issues: American Democracy and National Principles, Reform and Reaction; Federalists and Republicans, Nationalism and Internationalism; and the Individual and the National Purpose. All of these themes are central to Croly and remain so to this day. The new, forty-page introduction by Scott R. Bowman, brings the story of The Promise up to date. But it may be studied with a critical eye to the social maladies confronting Americans as a new century approaches.

About this title

From the Publisher:

COSIMO CLASSICS offers distinctive titles by the great authors and thinkers who have inspired, informed and engaged readers throughout the ages.

From the Back Cover:

Aggressive voices promote minority special interests. Wealth is concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The middle class is under siege. Giant corporations and big business threaten democracy itself.

Such was the state of the United States after the Civil War, and if it sounds familiar, then it only underlines the continuing relevance of Herbert Croly's The Promise of American Life, first published in 1909. Croly saw an American culture desperately fragmented, torn by the transformation from a rural, agrarian economy to an urban, industrial one, and called for a righting of societal and economic imbalances through collective national efforts and strong government.

President Teddy Roosevelt backed his theories, which also influenced the shape and scope of FDR's New Deal years later. But the historical import of Croly's passionate and stirring manifesto on Progressive political belief is overshadowed by its pertinence to the social and economic issues facing Americans today.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 1560006285
• ISBN 13: 9781560006282
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 506