Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy

The Outlook ^ | November 18th, 1914 | Theodore Roosevelt

[ProgressingAmerica]

THERE are books of which it is impossible to make an epitome, and which therefore it is impossible to review save in the way of calling attention to their excellence. Bryce's "American Commonwealth," Lowell's " Study of Representative Government in Europe," Thayer's "Study of Cavour," illustrate what is meant by this statement. Two new volumes, "Progressive Democracy," by Herbert Croly, and •' Drift and Mastery," by Walter Lippmann, come in this category. No man who wishes seriously to study our present social, industrial, and political life with the view of guiding his thought and action so as to work for National betterment in the future can afford not to read these books through and through and to ponder and digest them. They worthily carry forward the argument contained in the authors' previous works—" The Promise of American Life," by Mr. Croly, and "A Preface to Politics," by Mr. Lippmann.

Both of these writers stand foremost among those of our thinkers who recognize the grave abuses of our present system and the need of breaking the shackles which the interested beneficiaries and the disinterested but fanatical devotees of the past would impose upon us. Both thoroughly realize the absolute need that we shall move forward toward a definite goal unless we are willing to see misfortune come to our people. But each is as far as possible from those unwise reformers who denounce everything that smacks of the past as vicious, and who consider all change of any kind as in itself beneficial. Both of them—and Mr. Lippmann especially so—are believers in a great increase in the application of the principle of collective action. But neither of them makes a fetish of ultra-collectivism any more than of ultra individualism.......

[ProgressingAmerica]

(Alternate link) Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy, By Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt's Book Recommendations

There's quite a bit to cover in this small essay, but I'll have to get to that later.

Written in 1914, in the magazine 'The Outlook',Two Noteworthy Books on Democracy makes the following book recommendations:

THERE are books of which it is impossible to make an epitome, and which therefore it is impossible to review save in the way of calling attention to their excellence. Bryce's "American Commonwealth," Lowell's "Study of Representative Government in Europe," Thayer's "Study of Cavour," illustrate what is meant by this statement. Two new volumes, "Progressive Democracy," by Herbert Croly, and "Drift and Mastery," by Walter Lippmann, come in this category. No man who wishes seriously to study our present social, industrial, and political life with the view of guiding his thought and action so as to work for National betterment in the future can afford not to read these books through and through and to ponder and digest them.

Unfortunately, I must live my life so I can't solely devote time to reading every single book around. I have to go as time permits, just like this blog. But one of these books in particular - Progressive Democracy - is one that I have already blogged about.

Progressivism: The Dictatorship of the Constitution

It's nice to know who, and what, informs presidents. Under normal circumstances these would be the last things I'd ever want to read. But for the purposes of learning progressivism, we should all be informing ourselves.

[gunnyg]

What sort of “person’ would gas about books on “democracy”!!!!!!