Bibliographic Details
Author: William E. Leuchtenburg
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Year: 1958 (Revised 1993)
Thesis Statement
William E. Leuchtenburg argues that the period between the outbreak of the First World War and the nadir of the Great Depression represents the pivotal transition of the United States from a localized, agrarian-minded society into a modern, industrial, and urbanized global power, a transformation that was characterized by deep-seated cultural anxieties and a painful, structural realignment of American values.
Summary
In The Perils of Prosperity, 1914-1932, William E. Leuchtenburg provides a masterful synthesis of an era defined by rapid upheaval and profound contradiction. As a historian, Leuchtenburg is interested in the “new” America that emerged from the crucible of World War I—a nation shedding its provincial skin only to find itself entangled in the web of modernity. He meticulously charts the decline of the small-town, Victorian ethos as it collided head-on with the rise of the machine age, the mass-production revolution, and the shifting moral landscapes of the “Roaring Twenties.”
Leuchtenburg eschews a simplistic caricature of the Jazz Age. Instead, he highlights the darker undertones of the decade: the pervasive fear of radicalism known as the Red Scare, the reactionary politics of the Ku Klux Klan, and the rigid moral crusades epitomized by Prohibition. He argues that the decade’s superficial prosperity masked a fundamental failure to distribute wealth equitably, which inevitably paved the way for the catastrophe of 1929. The book captures the tension between the modernists—who embraced jazz, cinema, and secular individualism—and the traditionalists who sought to resurrect a nostalgic, homogeneous American past. By the time the narrative concludes with the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Leuchtenburg has convincingly demonstrated that the old 19th-century order had been shattered, and the modern American administrative state was poised to take its place.
The strength of this work lies in its intellectual agility; Leuchtenburg moves seamlessly from the high politics of the Harding and Coolidge administrations to the cultural shifts in American suburbs and cities. He posits that the 1920s were not a mere “interlude” between the Progressive Era and the New Deal, but rather the laboratory in which the tools of modern governance and mass consumer culture were forged. Even decades after its publication, the text remains the definitive guide for understanding how the American psyche struggled to reconcile the immense power of its new industrial identity with the precariousness of its democratic institutions.
Chapter-by-Chapter Breakdown
- I. The Crucible of War: Analyzes the domestic impact of WWI and the subsequent collapse of the Progressive movement.
- II. The Red Scare: Examines the widespread paranoia following the Bolshevik Revolution and the suppression of civil liberties.
- III. The Old Order Changeth: Details the rural-urban divide and the decline of agrarian political dominance.
- IV. The Business of America: Focuses on the triumph of consumer capitalism, mass production, and the ideology of the “self-made” executive.
- V. The Flaming Youth: Explores the sexual revolution, the flapper phenomenon, and the subversion of traditional Victorian mores.
- VI. The Dark Side of Prosperity: Documents the resurgence of nativism, the KKK, and the fervor of religious fundamentalism.
- VII. The Great Bull Market: Traces the speculative mania of the stock market and the economic fragility of the late 1920s.
- VIII. The Great Depression: Concludes with the market collapse and the failed efforts of the Hoover administration to stabilize the economy.
Scholarly Reception
The book is widely regarded as a classic of mid-century historiography. It is praised for its elegant prose and its ability to balance cultural, social, and political history with uncommon clarity. Critics generally acknowledge it as the foundational text for any serious study of the Interwar period.
Representative Quotes:
- “The period of the nineteen-twenties was a time of fundamental change in the American way of life, a decade when the United States moved from a rural to an urban society.”
- “The tragedy of the 1920s was not that the American people did not know how to be rich, but that they did not know how to be a modern nation without sacrificing the core of their democratic heritage.”