Capitalism and Politics in the Progressive Era and in Ours

A little over thirty years ago at the invitation of Stanley Kutler at Reviews in American History , I spent a summer trying to puzzle through the historiography surrounding Progressive Era society and politics. “In Search of Progressivism” the result was titled, and it has had a much longer life than most historiographical pieces of that sort do. Many excellent historiographical treatments of the Progressive Era have been published since that essay's appearance in 1982, along with a huge amount of historical writing. The field has burgeoned in ways that were barely visible thirty years ago. And yet the essay endures, and from time to time I think of revisiting and revising it.