Alternative America - Henry George, Edward Bellamy, Henry Demarest Lloyd and the Adversary Tradition (Hardcover)

Prof. Thomas (History, Brown) has managed to make three interesting figures dull, without improving our understanding of them or what they represent. Henry George (1839-97), Edward Bellamy (1850-98), and the lesser-known Henry Demarest Lloyd (1847-1903) were the visionary authors of three big books. (Lloyd's is Wealth Against Commonwealth, an attack on monopolies,) What they had in common, in addition - a rejection of American materialism and a belief in the efficacy of spiritual values - they shared with many contemporaries. To this, Thomas has nothing to add in relating the (oft-told) stories of their lives. George, a down-and-out newspaperman in San Francisco, decided that progress and poverty were two sides of the same dollar: the increasing value of land went hand-in-hand with the decreasing value of labor. His simple solution was a single tax on land that would result in abundance for all. This appealing idea led to creation of the Union Labor party, which George headed (in 1886 he came in second in a run for N.Y. mayor, beating out TR). Bellamy was more a fanatic. Tucked away in Chicopee Falls, Mass., writing editorials for the Springfield Union, Bellamy envisioned a society espousing his Religion of Solidarity - thus prefiguring later ideas of scientific management (and giving rise to self-styled Nationalists who organized into collectivist clubs but shunned politics). Lloyd, a Chicago Tribune reporter, first hit it big with a muckraking article on Standard Oil. Along with Jane Addams, Florence Kelley, Eugene Debs, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, he was one of the religiously-inspired Midwesterners who gave birth to Progressivism. When his book, extending the attack on Standard Oil, didn't result in public action, Lloyd was puzzled: he was a man who believed in facts. Curiously, Thomas' interweaving of the lives of the three accentuates the differences among them. Otherwise, his interpretations are unremarkable, as is his prose. ("George," he writes, "was a meticulous craftsman who polished his chiseled blocks of argument carefully before arranging them on a solid foundation.") The book has little to offer beyond its title. (Kirkus Reviews)

Through vivid and searching portraits of these three redoubtable journalists, prizewinning historian John L. Thomas traces for the first time the evolving ideologies of the most significant reformers of their age.

George's "Progress and Poverty," Bellamy's "Looking Backward," and Lloyd's "Wealth against Commonwealth" each in its turn became an international best-seller, championing a course of national policy and social reform that owed allegiance neither to the large-scale capitalist model then emerging, nor to the bureaucratic socialism espoused on the left. Also common to the vast writings of all three were a deep distrust of partisan machine politics and a mounting sense of social crisis which neither spoilsmanship nor materialism seemed able to address.

Seeking instead diversity and cooperation within society, small economic units, and simplicity in government, the authors of these works were moved to defend strikes during the heyday of industrial capitalism. They spoke out for international peace when imperialism was rampant. They called for the preservation of community values in the face of urban sprawl. And they urged the goals of brotherhood and interdependence in an age when survival of the fittest was seen as holy writ.

They failed magnificently as apostles of a radical culture based on the ideal of a community, yet their intellectual legacy was not lost: their heirs include the broad movement that took the name Progressive, the New Deal, and the hopeful crusades of the 1960s. This magnificent book is their memorial and their history.

General

Imprint:	The Belknap Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	1983
First published:	1983
Authors:	John L Thomas
Dimensions:	235 x 156 x 40mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	432
ISBN-13:	978-0-674-01676-7
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > General
LSN:	0-674-01676-9
Barcode:	9780674016767

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