Böcker av Herbert Croly

The Promise of American Life was first published in 1909

Croly explains the requirements for a genuinely popular system of representative government providing progressive liberalism with both a philosophical critique of the founding fathers' political outlook, and a political strategy for replacing it with something more in keeping with a new epoch

Herbert Croly explains the requirements for a genuinely popular system of representative government. He provides progressive liberalism with both a philosophical critique of the founding fathers' political outlook, and a political strategy for replacing it with something more in keeping with a new epoch.

The Promise of American Life was first published in 1909

Originally published in 1903, the chapters are:Men Who Build Fine HousesThe Colonial ResidenceThe Meaning of the Transitional DwellingThe Character of the Transitional DwellingThe Beginnings of the Greater Modern ResidenceThe Modern American Residence - Economic and Social ConditionsThe Modern American Residence - Its ExteriorThe Modern American Residence - Its Interior Vintage photos (both interior and exterior) are included with history about the homes, and architectural opinions of the time are given. A large number of homes are covered in extensive detail, including the residences of William Waldorf Astor, Andrew Carnegie, Henry M. Flagler, Cornelius Vanderbilt, J. Pierpont Morgan, Potter Palmer, Lawrence C. Phipps, and many more.

The Promise of American Life is part of the bedrock of American liberalism, a classic that had a spectacular impact on national politics when it was first published in 1909 and that has been recognized ever since as a defining text of liberal reform. The book helped inspire Theodore Roosevelt's New Nationalism and Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, put Herbert Croly on a path to become the founding editor of the New Republic, and prompted Walter Lippmann to call him twentieth-century America's "e;first important political philosopher."e; The book is at once a history of America and its political ideals and an analysis of contemporary ills, from rampant economic inequality to unchecked corporate power. In response, Croly advocated combining the Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian traditions and creating a strong federal government to ensure that all Americans had a fair shot at individual success. The formula still defines American liberalism, and The Promise of American Life continues to resonate today, offering a vital source of renewal for liberals and progressives. For this new edition, Franklin Foer has written a substantial foreword that puts the book in historical context and explains its continuing importance.