Tracing the transformation of liberal political ideology from the end of the Civil War to the early twentieth century, Nancy Cohen offers a new interpretation of the origins and character of modern liberalism. She argues that the values and programs associated with modern liberalism were formulated not during the Progressive Era, as most accounts maintain, but earlier, in the very different social context of the Gilded Age. Integrating intellectual, social, cultural, and economic history, Cohen argues that the reconstruction of liberalism hinged on the reaction of postbellum liberals to social and labor unrest. As new social movements of workers and farmers arose and phrased their protests in the rhetoric of democratic producerism, liberals retreated from earlier commitments to an expansive vision of democracy. Redefining liberal ideas about citizenship and the state, says Cohen, they played a critical role in legitimating emergent corporate capitalism and politically insulating it from democratic challenge. As the social cost of economic globalization comes under international critical scrutiny, this book revisits the bitter struggles over the relationship between capitalism and democracy in post-Civil War America. The resolution of this problem offered by the new liberalism deeply influenced the progressives and has left an enduring legacy for twentieth-century American politics, Cohen argues.

About the Author
Nancy Cohen is a visiting scholar at the Institute of Industrial Relations, University of California, Los Angeles.

Reviews
"Our understanding of the intellectual origins of Progressivism, and therefore of the paths taken by American liberalism in the twentieth century, will be greatly deepened by the powerful case Nancy Cohen has made regarding the character and importance of their nineteenth-century antecedents." - Wilfred M. McClay, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga



Book Information
ISBN 9780807853542
Author Nancy Cohen
Format Paperback
Page Count 336
Imprint The University of North Carolina Press
Publisher The University of North Carolina Press
Weight(grams) 477g