William R. Brock

The Waning of Radicalism

In June 1868 seven Southern States were admitted to Congress under the Reconstruction Acts. In March 1870 Mississippi, Texas and Virginia were admitted, and in July Georgia, which had been returned to military rule after the white members of the legislature had expelled the negro members, was re-admitted. In February 1869 the Fifteenth Amendment, making it unconstitutional to impose racial qualifications for suffrage, passed both Houses and was ratified by March 1870. The Radical plan of Reconstruction seemed triumphant.

The American Commonwealth and the dilemmas of democracy

From the 1890s to 1920s most educated Americans learned about the government of their country from The American Commonwealth by James Bryce. It had also a marked effect on American political science in its early years as an academic discipline. Many of its assessments reflected the views of the reformers in the 1870s but others anticipated the twentieth century. Inconsistencies arose from attempts to reconcile democratic ideals with the actual politics of democracy and attachment to limited government with its steady expansion. The difficulty increased with information supplied by Albert Shaw and Thomas M. Cooley when the book was almost complete. Bryce decided not to make extensive changes in his descriptive chapters but to place the more speculative new material in the third volume (parts 4–6 in the 1893 two‐volume edition) which unfortunately attracted little attention from contemporary reviewers. Thus, in spite of the books popularity, its influence was diminished when it sought to open the debate on the links between democracy and the expanding functions of government.

From New Deal to New Liberalism

This is an important addition to New Deal historiography, but, as with many other academic monographs, the subtitle tells more than the title. The books primary purpose is not to examine the end of reform but to explain how and why American liberalism was transformed. In that it brings together much that is already known and advances no startling new interpretations, it can be described as a synthesis; but it is synthesis of a high order. No other book covers the ground with such mastery and at numerous points a new insight or citation illuminates what has hitherto been obscure. Seventy-two archival sources and eighty-one pages of notes (several of them condensed historiographical essays) demonstrate the width and depth of his learning. Even more telling is the good judgment with which the material is handled. The New Deal gave birth to a new species of liberalism. In Roosevelts words, quoted by Brinkley, its leading characteristic was a changed concept of the duty and responsibility of government toward economic life. Progressive moralism slipped into the background, city bosses were flattered rather than challenged, all forms of populism were distrusted as antiintellectual and irrational, racial questions were avoided, gender was not yet an issue, and so far as the New Dealers were concerned anyone could imbibe as much alcohol as they wished. What the New Deal liberals did have in overflowing measure was intellectual energy harnessed to the conviction that society could be reconstructed on just, rational, and efficient lines, and that the intelligent use of political power would make general welfare more than an empty phrase. To these liberals of the New Deal everything seemed possible after the election of 1936; then came recession to show that it was not. Worse followed with the ill-fated attempt to reform the Supreme Court, the loss of the Executive Reorganization Bill, and the resurgence of conservative and frequently virulent opposition. In the next five years appropriations for the Works Progress Administration were cut and cut again until it expired, other New Deal innovations were dropped or rendered ineffective, and the National Resources Planning Board-repository for so many liberal hopes-was

Scottish Emigration to Colonial America, 1607-1785.

Before 1650, only a few hundred Scots had trickled into the American colonies, but by the early 1770s the number had risen to 10,000 per year. A conservative estimate of the total number of Scots who settled in North America prior to 1785 is around 150,000.Who were these Scots? What did they do? Where did they settle? What factors motivated their emigration? Dobsons work, based on original research on both sides of the Atlantic, comprehensively identifies the Scottish contribution to the settlement of North America prior to 1785, with particular emphasis on the seventeenth century.

Soviet-American dialogue on the New Deal

The study of U.S. history has flourished in the Soviet Union during the last several years, with much research being published in Soviet journals. Since those journals have very limited circulation in the West and since few U.S. scholars read Russian, the Soviet vantage point on American history, which often differs considerably from the view of U. S. scholars, has been mostly inaccessible. In this volume, the first in a series, scholars from both nations have cooperated to rectify part of that deficiency by examining one of the most significant decades in American history, the 1930s.Eleven essays by Soviet historians that were originally published in Soviet journals have been translated into English; eight American historians have responded with commentary on those essays; and the Soviets have written brief rejoinders. The volume thus presents a unique opportunity to learn the contours of Soviet writings on the New Deal, to take account of their preoccupations and conclusions, and then to read the appraisals of noted U.S. scholars.