Social Darwinism In American Thought 1860 1915

Social Darwinism in American Thought portrays the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory and the notable battle waged among thinkers over the implications of evolutionary theory for social thought and political action. Theorists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner adopted the idea of the struggle for existence as justification for the evils as well as the benefits of laissez-faire modern industrial society. Others such as William James and John Dewey argued that human planning was needed to direct social development and improve upon the natural order. Hofstadter's classic study of the ramifications of Darwinism is a major analysis of the social philosophies that animated intellectual movements of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

Social Darwinism in American Thought examines the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory and the notable battle waged among thinkers over the implications of evolutionary theory for social thought and political action. Theorists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner adopted the idea of the struggle for existence as justification for the evils--as well as the benefits--of laissez-faire modern industrial society. Others, such as William James and John Dewey, argued that human planning was needed to direct social development and improve on the natural order. Hofstadter's classic study of the ramifications of Darwinism is a major analysis of the social philosophies that animated intellectual movements of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

An analysis of the ideological influence of Social Darwinists in Europe and America.

Tracing the impact of Darwin on thinkers throughout the gilded Age and the Progressive era, 'Social Darwinism' shows how a politically neutral scientific theory has been adapted with skillful rhetoric to contradictory purposes.

Social Darwinism in American Thought examines the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory and the notable battle waged among thinkers over the implications of evolutionary theory for social thought and political action. Theorists such as Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner adopted the idea of the struggle for existence as justification for the evils—as well as the benefits—of laissez-faire modern industrial society. Others, such as William James and John Dewey, argued that human planning was needed to direct social development and improve on the natural order. Hofstadter's classic study of the ramifications of Darwinism is a major analysis of the social philosophies that animated intellectual movements of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era.

Attempts to assess the role played by Darwinian ideas in the writings of English-speaking social theorists.

The term social Darwinism owes its currency and its association with free markets to an unresolved tension in Richard Hofstadter's (1944) influential Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860-1915 (SDAT). Hofstadter's New Deal sensibility condemned both free markets and the use of biological ideas in social science; he championed economic reform and a social science purged of biology. But the Progressive Era reformers Hofstadter celebrated in SDAT - men like Lester F. Ward, Edward A. Ross, Thorstein Veblen, Charles Horton Cooley, and John R. Commons - were enthusiastic biologizers who often justified economic reform on biological grounds. Because Hofstadter's reform-good-biology-bad schema does not map upon Progressive Era reform, there are two different Hofstadters in SDAT. The first Hofstadter disparaged as social Darwinism biological justification of free markets, for this was, in his view, doubly wrong. The second Hofstadter acknowledged the biological underside of what he called Darwinian collectivism: racism, eugenics and imperialism. This essay documents and explains Hofstadter's ambivalence in SDAT, including its connection with the Left's longstanding mistrust of Darwinism as apology for Malthusian political economy.

"These books make available, for the first time in striking juxtaposition, much of the rich and remarkable American response to the idea of social evolution. Professor Ryan has succeeded in producing a selection of the best work in the field. The volumes are balanced, intellectually deep and as relevant and fascinating today as they were a hundred years ago. Ryan deserves high praise for re-acquainting us with these lost treasures." --John Lachs Although Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection stunned the halls of biology, anthropology, and religion, its most profound repercussion in America was "Social Darwinism." Beginning in the 1880s, William Graham Sumner and his successors pushed "survival of the fittest" beyond biology to justify power, wealth, and even racial and gender superiority. Theodore Roosevelt and Stephen B. Luce championed military expansionism on Darwinian grounds, and eugenicist Charles B. Davenport urged selective breeding to propagate the strong and eradicate the physically and mentally infirm. Despite its widespread popularity, after the turn of the century Social Darwinism was challenged by a growing rank of philosophers, sociologists, and economists who argued that the movement thrived on bigotry and bad science. By the 1920s the countermovement led by Lester F. Ward, John Dewey, Charles H. Cooley, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Thorstein Veblen had proven itself the "fitter" of the two. This three-volume set features more than sixty indispensable essays from 1880 to 1920, most of which have never been anthologized and are now scarce. Volume 1: Social Darwinism and its Critics offers William Graham Sumner's classic defense of Social Darwinism and its criticism from sociologists and philosophers such as Lester F. Ward, James Mark Baldwin, Charles H. Cooley, Jacob Gould Schurman, John Dewey, and Arthur M. Lewis. Volume 2: Race, Gender, and Supremacy rekindles the volatile clash over issues of race, gender, eugenics, and American supremacy, from authors including Nathaniel S. Shaler, Lydia Kingsmill Commander, Charles B. Davenport, Charles A. Ellwood, Theodore Roosevelt, Franz Boas, Edward A. Ross, and Charles H. Cooley. Volume 3: Evolution, Law, and Economics explores the impact of evolution on theories of natural law and economics, including pieces from William Graham Sumner, Thomas Nixon Carver, Andrew Carnegie, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis D. Brandeis, Simon Nelson Patten, and Thorstein Veblen. --more than 60 articles, tracing the impact of Darwinism on sociology, psychology, race, gender, eugenics, law and economics in the USA --all material reset and indexed, with a new introduction to each volume