Customer Reviews

Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform

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This book won the Bancroft Prize for History in 1953 and gives a vivid account of the reform movements - and the reasons for reform - from the Civil War, through Teddy Roosevelt, through Woodrow Wilson, to the culmination in the New Deal.

The overall impression I received was a blur of activists - name after name - but it presents the history of the different problems America faced during these times and the different movements - and reformers - seeking change. The book explains much about how today's modern economy and society emerged. The Progressive Era (Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson) takes center stage, which created the foundation for the New Deal and the dominating political figure Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This is a specialized study of the activism, so those interested in a more general history of the Progressive Era should consider "Pivotal Decades" by John Milton Cooper. Those interested in the New Deal should read a book about the New Deal or a good FDR biography.

I found these more extensive publisher comments on the web:

Publisher Comments:
In one of the most brilliant and dramatic historical narratives ever written about the American experience, Eric Goldman tells a story of the men and women who have been the stuff of American reform. Beginning in the years after the Civil War, when our tradition of dissent was fueled by industrialization and urbanization, he deals not with theories but with the lives of the dissenters, Populist and Progressive, with their political organization and schemes, their popular support, the newspapers and newspapermen who controlled them or followed them, the several dramatic flood tides of reform, and the subsequent ebbing. Mr. Goldman has the gift of personal portraiture; by returning directly to men and events, he shows that reform groups have often been patched-up alliances of planners and libertarians, centralizers and decentralizers. The tradition of freedom and the tradition of welfare - both passing as liberal - haphazardly merged in the New Deal, where only Franklin Roosevelt's political skill held them together.

This is a history book that reads like an adventure story and is filled with the passion for reform that moved Professor Goldman. I was a student in his classroom when this book was first published and Goldman's book reflected the beginning of academia's love affair with Big Goverment. Reading the book it is hard not to fall in line behind the Progressives and their desire to bring all the evils of society under control. The reformers are all presented as heroes and the villains are Big Business. The message is strengthened by the real need one hundred years ago for some of the reforms instituted to protect the Labor Movement and restrict corrupt corporate practices. However, the book suffers from being very one-sided in those regards and the author rarely indicates any downside to the massive governmental regulations and programs born out of the Progressive Movement. The book is of considerable current interest because today's reader should be struck by the real significance of those early reform issues compared to the agenda of today's reformers. Goldman's characters dealt with life and death, hunger, and massive mob violence. Today's issues revolve more around self esteem, avoidance of embarassments, feel-good programs and the provision not of necessities but of what would have been considered luxuries by even the well-to-do of the Progressive Era. The contrast may indicate whether there has been an over-reaction of compassion. I recommend the book for those interested in the difference between positive rights vs negative rights and the growing alarm bells ringing over the burgeoning cost of entitlement programs. If you want to know how we got to where we are today, this book gives the detailed blow-by-blow answers.

This book is unique in my experience in tracking the history of American reform from the mid-18th century till about 1952. Not only is this an interesting read, told well, with sketches of key players, but it highlights key reform issues about which we are still arguing today. A major focus is on the Progressive Era of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. Goldman explains in a way that was revalatory to me the import of Roosevelt's New Nationalism, with its approval of big business and its assumption that government could regulate and control it, with Wilson's New Freedom, which assumed that big business would take over the regulators and then use the authority of the federal government to restraint competition. These and other reform issues are currently being fought over in election platforms. Although I was already familiar with the general history of this era and its reform movements, Goldman turned on lightbulb after lightbulb for me with his insights and clear explanations, illustrated in the actions of the key players of those days. Upon finishing this book, I immediately ordered Goldman's other books from Amazon in the hope and expectation of further enlightenment on other eras of modern American history.