Preface; 1. 1931; 2. Life, death, and learning in the cities; 3. Toward a new economy, 1890–1930; 4. State crafting – American style; 5. Confronting the world; 6. Winners and losers, 1890–1930; 7. New Deal experiments; 8. Fighting on God's side; 9. A new aristocracy, 1946–1969; 10. The suburban conquest of the 1960s; 11. Empire in the American century; 12. The tattered empire of the 1970s; 13. Cracked core; 14. The American solution; 15. Conservatism – rhetoric and realities, 1981–2001; 16. The hegemony trap; 17. The American dream, 1981–2001; 18. The creative society in danger.
Examines the nation's emerging ranks of professional experts – including doctors, lawyers, scientists and administrators – and their role in shaping modern America.
Louis Galambos is Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, where he also serves as Editor of the Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower and Co-Director of The Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. He is the author of numerous books on modern institutional development in America, the rise of the bureaucratic state and the evolution of the professions, most recently Medicine, Science, and Merck (with Roy Vagelos, 2002). He is co-editor of two Cambridge series and has received widespread recognition for his development of the 'organizational synthesis' of modern US history.
'Louis Galambos delivers a dazzling history of the modern United
States as formed by its managers, scientists, diplomats, planners
and lawyers. The hopeful message is that, more often than not,
American expertise and innovation will save the day.' Jay Hancock,
economics columnist, The Baltimore Sun
'The Creative Society is a bold, provocative, and compelling
reinterpretation of perennial dilemmas in American society written
by an historian at the top of his game. Louis Galambos brings his
'organizational synthesis' to life by evoking the experiences that
animated the new professionals – in education, business,
government, foreign policy, and urban life – who have made America
work since the 1890s. This is history at its best: thoughtful,
captivating, witty, and wise. Everyone who reads The Creative
Society will gain a new understanding of key crises in American
history – and novel insights to make sense of the challenges we
face today.' Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Senior Partner, RabinMartin and
former president and CEO, Global Health Council
'Louis Galambos is equally adept as storyteller and historian.
Witty, readable, illuminating, and sometimes highly personal, this
is a history book with the drama of a novel. Professor Galambos
charts twentieth-century American development in four broad areas –
urbanization, innovation, economic security, and internationalism –
and weaves throughout these concurrent narratives an astonishing
array of detail. His cast of characters is America's
self-proclaimed and educated professionals. Lawyers, economists,
nurses, urban planners, mining engineers, teachers, and even
military strategists act out a historical pageant that boasts
winners and losers. Most vividly, Galambos stirs his own family
story into the mix. His small-town Ohio clan of bustling Hungarian
emigrants shares the stage with prominent twentieth-century figures
like Emma Goldman, George Marshall, and Robert Moses. And in a
masterstroke of history writing, he invites us, his readers, to
enhance his storytelling with reflections on our own American
experience.' Mary Yeager and John Lithgow, Los Angeles, California
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