American Progressives and German Social Reform 1875-1920: Social Ethics, Moral Control, and the Regulatory State in a Transatlantic Context Book

This study recreates the intellectual climate and transatlantic setting of turn-of-the-century American reform. It examines the influence and meaning of German social thought and reform in the American Reform Movement prior to World War I. The American Progressives used the German theories in order to develop and establish new concepts of reform and to base democracy on principles other than possessive individualism, utilitarian ethics, and market ideology that liberalism held in stock. However, due to the war these reforms lost their radical character. In the end, the progressive quest for a broader sphere of public control, participatory models of reform, and social ethics yielded to the liberal model of regulation, business co-operation, and administrative efficiency, and to the moralistic agenda of prohibition and immigration control. "Axel R. Schafer's fine study of what American progressives learned from their German counterparts adds to the growing literature illuminating the cosmopolitan breadth and ideological daring of turn-of-the-century reform. [a] It is a testament to the argumentative force of this insightful work that it so clarifies and deepens the vital debate over the progressive legacy in our new Gilded Age." The Journal of American History "Schafer did not intend to offer an exhaustive treatment; instead, he wished to show that part of progressive thought was not merely home grown, ,a relection of narrow, moralistic Protestantismae (220), but had some German roots, too. This he did well, and readers may mine his chapters for other insightsa" German Studies Review "Axel R. Schafers kenntnisreiche, methodisch reflektierte und quellengesattigte Untersuchung legt die bis vor kurzem nur wenig beachteten transatlantischen Bezuge der ,progressiven Bewegungae an der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert frei und bettet dieses, als ,sehr amerikanischae geltende Reformphanomen starker in seinen weltlichen Gesamtzusammenhang ein. Schafer wird daher nicht nur von Amerikaspezialisten mit Gewinn gelesen werden, sondern auch von Historikern, die sich mit interkulturellen Austauschprozessen beschaftigen." Das Historisch-Politische Buch "Selten jedenfalls ist die Krise des Progressivism im Ersten Weltkrieg so klar analysiert worden wie hiera" Historische Zeitschrift "Anachronismen vermeidend und mit grosser Fahigkeit zur Empathie zeichnet Schafer die Motive und Vorstellungswelten der Akteure nach, ohne sie von vornherein zu verurteilen. Auf diese Weise gelingt ihm eine sehr differenzierte Darstellunga" Neue Politische Literatur. (Franz Steiner 2000)