Promise of American Life

by Herbert Croly

54 chapters18h 33mEnglish1909

About this book

The book is said to "offer a manifesto of Progressive beliefs" that "anticipated the transition from competitive to corporate capitalism and from limited government to the welfare state." By Croly’s death in 1930, only 7,500 copies of The Promise of American Life had been sold. Despite this, the book was immensely influential, even influencing Theodore Roosevelt to adopt the platform of The New Nationalism.

Chapters (54)

1What Is the Promise of American Life?

961

2How the Promise has been realized

1321

3How the Promise is to be realized

1479

4The Federalists and the Republicans

1642

5Federalism and Republicanism as opponents

1141

6Federalism and Republicanism as allies

803

7The Democrats and the Whigs

468

8The New National Democracy

1543

9The Whig failure

872

10Slavery and American Nationality

1174

11Slavery as a Democratic Institution

1272

12Lincoln as more than an American

1514

13The Contemporary Situation and Its Problems

858

14The Development of the Business Specialist

1685

15The Development of the Political Specialist

1275

16The Labor Union and the Democratic Tradition

795

17Government by Lawyers

958

18American Democracy and the Social Problem

340

19Reform and the Reformers

1042

20The Logic of Reform

1019

21William J. Bryan as a Reformer

846

22William Travers Jerome as a Reformer

543

23William R. Hearst as a Reformer

555

24Theodore Roosevelt as a Reformer

753

25The Reformation of Theodore Roosevelt

578

26Reconstruction: Its Conditions and Purposes

1467

27Democracy and Discrimination

1136

28Constructive Discrimination

2077

29The Bridge between Democracy and Nationality

1111

30Nationality and Democracy: National Origins

1061

31The Implications of National Development

1220

32Nationality and Democracy in England

1329

33Democracy and Nationality in France

937

34The Relation of German Nationality to Democracy

1227

35Militarism and Nationality

1604

36The American Democracy and Its National Principles

1083

37Nationality and Centralization

1054

38The People and the Nation

1341

39A National Foreign Policy

1674

40A stable American international system

1120

41Democracy and Peace

931

42Problems of Reconstruction: Part 1 - State Institutional Reform

2790

43State Administrative Reform

1505

44Possibilities of effective state action

1016

45Problems of Reconstruction: Part 2

902

46The recognition of Industrial Organization

1754

47The fruits of Industrial Organization

1870

48Taxation and inequalities in wealth

650

49The organization of Labor

1949

50Conclusions: The Individual and the National Purposes - Individual vs. Collective Education

1526

51Conditions of individual emancipation

1929

52Attempts at individual emancipation

921

53Means of individual emancipation

2148

54Constructive individualism

2042

Promise of American Life

About this book

Chapters (54)

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