Table of Contents

Introduction: Social Theory and Capitalist Reality in the American Century

PART I. THEORIZING TWENTIETH-CENTURY AMERICAN CAPITALISM
1 The Postcapitalist Vision in Twentieth-Century American Social Thought
—Howard Brick
2 To Moscow and Back: American Social Scientists and the Concept of Convergence
—David C. Engerman

PART II. LIBERALISM AND ITS SOCIAL AGENDA
3 Clark Kerr: From the Industrial to the Knowledge Economy
—Paddy Riley
4 John Kenneth Galbraith: Liberalism and the Politics of Cultural Critique
—Kevin Mattson
5 The Prophet of Post-Fordism: Peter Drucker and the Legitimation of the Corporation
—Nils Gilman

PART III. A CRITIQUE FROM THE LEFT
6 C. Wright Mills and American Social Science
—Daniel Geary
7 C. L. R. James and the Theory of State Capitalism
—Christopher Phelps
8 Oliver C. Cox and the Roots of World Systems Theory
—Christopher A. McAuley
9 Feminism, Women's History, and American Social Thought at Midcentury
—Daniel Horowitz

PART IV. THE RISE OF THE RIGHT
10 The Road Less Traveled: Reconsidering the Political Writings of Friedrich von Hayek
—Juliet Williams
11 The Politics of Rich and Rich: Postwar Investigations of Foundations and the Rise of the Philanthropic Right
—Alice O'Connor
12 American Counterrevolutionary: Lemuel Ricketts Boulware and General Electric, 1950-1960
—Kimberly Phillips-Fein
13 Godless Capitalism: Ayn Rand and the Conservative Movement
—Jennifer Burns

Notes
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments

About the Author

Nelson Lichtenstein is Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Center for Work, Labor, and Democracy. He is the author of Walter Reuther: The Most Dangerous Man in Detroit and State of the Union: A Century of American Labor, and editor of Wal-Mart: The Face of Twenty-First-Century Capitalism.

Reviews

"The intellectual history of capitalism finally gets its due in this volume of fresh, arresting essays. This book marks the willingness of a new generation of scholars to open up issues rarely addressed by the labor and business historians who until now have been our leading historians of capitalism."--David A. Hollinger, author of Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism "American Capitalism is an important contribution to our understanding of postwar American thought and culture. It will force historians to revise their pantheon of important thinkers for the period. This book reminds us how, in the postwar era, the triumph of a capitalist worldview remained open to serious questioning and alternatives."--George Cotkin, author of Existential America "An impressive and thought-provoking compilation of essays from political and national figures on recent and continuing American social and economic issues."--MBR Bookwatch