America Transformed

The Rise and Legacy of American Progressivism

Ronald J. Pestritto

• Publisher: Encounter Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781641771696
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The America of the modern administrative state is not the America of the original Constitution. Thistransformation comes not only from the ordinary course of historical change and development, but alsofrom a radical, new philosophy of government that was imported into the American political tradition bythe Progressives of the late nineteenth century. The new thinking about the principles of government –and open hostility to the American Constitution – led to a host of concrete changes that Progressivesproposed, and on occasion consummated, for American political institutions.Government today reflectsthese original Progressive innovations, even if they are often unrecognized as such because they havebecome ingrained for so long in American political culture. This book shows the nature of thesechanges – both in principles and in the nuts and bolts of governing; it also shows how progressivismwas at least at the root of critical developments subsequent to the Progressive Era in recent Americanpolitical history – how it was different than the New Deal, the liberalism of the 1960s, and today'sliberalism, but also how these subsequent developments could not have transpired without the groundlaid by the original Progressives.