I. Entry into the First World War revealed the entanglement of interest and idealism that has long characterized American politics and thought. Yet, apart from fears about the disruption of international commerce, few Americans regarded the outbreak of another war in the Balkans as a matter demanding serious attention or concern. Still fewer could [...]
Could democratic government solve, or even effectively address, the problems of a modern society? For decades, this question vexed Progressive reformers as they navigated the transformation of the United States from a country of small farms and rural communities to a nation of factories, corporations, and cities. Before the Civil War, Americans never doubted [...]
What older societies expressed in myth, custom, and tradition, Americans established through scholarship, in a heroic effort to sustain a national character and national consciousness that were often more ephemeral and certainly more elusive than they may at first have appeared or than Americans have been wont to believe… There is nothing new in [...]