Liberalism in the shadow of totalitarianism
By: David Ciepley.
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 379
ISBN-13: 9780674022966
Subjects: Liberalism -- United States; Progressivism (United States politics); Totalitarianism
Description: "This book argues that, more than any other factor, it was the encounter with totalitarianism that dissolved the ideals of American progressivism and crystallized the ideals of postwar liberalism. The New Deal began as a revolution in favor of progressive governance - executive-centered and expert-guided. But as David Ciepley shows, by the late 1930s, intellectuals and elites, reacting against the menace of totalitarianism, began to shrink from using state power to guide the economy or foster citizen virtues. All of the more statist governance projects of the New Deal were curtailed or abandoned, regardless of their success, and the country was placed on a more libertarian-corporatist trajectory, both economically and culturally."--BOOK JACKET
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 327-367) and index.