Why read Illiberal Reformers?

Book cover of Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics, and American Economics in the Progressive Era

Book description

In Illiberal Reformers, Thomas Leonard reexamines the economic progressives whose ideas and reform agenda underwrote the Progressive Era dismantling of laissez-faire and the creation of the regulatory welfare state, which, they believed, would humanize and rationalize industrial capitalism. But not for all. Academic social scientists such as Richard T. Ely,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Illiberal Reformers as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Malcolm Rutherford

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Mary Furner’s book presents what is the common view of progressives as liberal reformers, but there is another side to progressive social science that is less liberal.

The progressive era social science literature is replete with racism and with arguments about racial and other forms of inferiority derived from eugenics.

The vast amount of immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe gave rise to concerns about the undermining of American standards, both biological and economic, including theories of “race suicide.”

Leonard’s book has generated a great deal of discussion, and while there is no doubt that many progressives displayed eugenic and…

From Malcolm's list on The best books to understand the economic mind in America from 1880 to 1960.