Why the American Century? (review)

Why the American Century? By Olivier Zunz (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998) 245 pp. $24.00.

Why the American Century? is a fascinating work for several reasons. For one, Zunz is a new social historian who believes that the recent social history has too often explored the "periphery" at the expense of the "center." Zunz is hardly alone among social historians in arguing for more synthesis. But his voice is an especially persuasive one. For another, Zunz's new book is a shrewd meditation on what Henry Luce once dubbed "the American century." That century being behind us, it is all the more imperative to try to make sense of what it meant.

In large measure, Zunz's unconventional account concerns itself with the emergence--and triumph--of what might be called the academic-industrial complex. The author not only chronicles the profusion of professional associations and industrial laboratories in the early years of this century. He also makes it abundantly clear that the development of research councils, agricultural stations, and tax-exempt foundations made the kind of self-reliance extolled in the celebrations of Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight virtually obsolete long before the voyage occurred. Even Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, Zunz argues, was hardly the feat of a lone individual. In demonstrating the increasingly important role of teamwork and collective organizations in the seemingly relentless advance of science and industry, Zunz buttresses the recent writings of Robert Reich, former secretary of labor, on the myth of American individualism.

In this brave new world of the twentieth century, Zunz notes, the line between the world of business and the groves of academe was often blurred. Thus, John Watson, the behaviorist psychologist, had close ties to the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, not to mention Johnson and Johnson's baby powder company; George Gallup served stints in both academia and advertising before becoming an expert on the political views of the "average" American; and market researchers seized upon the findings of W. Lloyd Warner, whose sociological studies of consumption patterns seemed particularly relevant to those whose primary interest was in hawking more commodities.

Zunz strongly implies that this was not an entirely happy affair. Expertism proved to be an ideology for many political seasons. The early surveys funded by the Russell Sage Foundation served a reformist purpose, but the implications of intelligence testing were decidedly dangerous for a nation that prided itself on its democratic heritage. Not unlike Russell Jacoby, who lamented the decline of the public intellectual in America more than ten years ago, Zunz wonders whether the "service intellectuals" actually compromised what Jonn Dewey and others used to call "social intelligence."

Strikingly, though, the utilitarian bias of American social science was initially rooted in largely religious impulses. Zunz is especially strong when establishing a link between the Social Gospel of turn-of-the-century America and the nascent social-scientific professions. It was no accident that ministers figured prominently in the early years of the American Economics Association and that Walter Rauschenbusch, a leading advocate of the Social Gospel, warmly embraced the new social science. Interestingly, "institutional" economists like Richard Ely and John Commons believed Christianity and social reform were inextricably entwined, and Albion Small taught a course on "The Sociology of the New Testament" at the University of Chicago. Robert Lynd, the noted author of Middletown (New York, 1929), that classic study of Muncie, Indiana, had once been a minister. Even economist Simon Patten--mentor to young Rexford Guy Tugwell, who became part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's brain trust--was moved to write on The Social Basis of Religion (New York, 1911).

Eventually, social science severed itself from its religious (and, some would say, ethical) moorings. This trend became especially evident during the Depression and the New Deal. Even erstwhile progressives increasingly came to see the United States largely as a community of consumption. It was perhaps not too surprising that major businessmen...