Gunnar Myrdal and America's Conscience: Social Engineering and Racial Liberalism, 1938-1987

by Walter A. Jackson

Overview

Gunnar Myrdal's An American Dilemma (1944) influenced the attitudes of a generation of Americans on the race issue and established Myrdal as a major critic of American politics and culture. Walter Jackson explores how the Swedish Social Democratic scholar, policymaker, and activist came to shape a consensus on one of America's most explosive public issues.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469620602
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/02/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	468
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Walter A. Jackson is assistant professor of history at North Carolina State University.

Table of Contents

	Preface	xi
	Introduction: The Race Issue in the 1930s	1
1	Finding a Tocqueville	10
	Frederick Keppel and the Carnegie Corporation	11
	Newton Baker's Proposal	16
	Foundations and Black Americans	22
	"Exceptional Men," Colonial Administrators, and Scandinavians	26
2	Social Engineering and Prophylactic Reform	36
	The Making of an Intellectual Aristocrat	40
	Marriage to Alva and Apprenticeship to Cassel	50
	First Visit to America, 1929-1930	59
	Social Democratic Reform	68
	Sweden's "Population Crisis"	75
3	Encountering the "Negro Problem"	88
	Initial Impressions	89
	An Absence of Consensus	94
	A Royal Commission for the "Negro Problem"	106
	On the Road	117
	Myrdal and Bunche	121
4	My War Work	135
	"The World's Problem in Miniature"	137
	Contact with America	147
	Conflicts of Conscience	159
	"The Limits of Optimism"	164
	Democratic Internationalism or American Imperialism?	173
	Myrdal and the July 20, 1944, Plot to Kill Hitler	181
5	An American Dilemma: The Text	186
	The American Creed and Institutional Change	188
	Race, Population, and Migration	198
	Economics	204
	Politics, Justice, and Social Equality	212
	Negro Politics, Culture, and Community	219
	Racial Justice in a Global Context	228
6	The Study to End All Studies	231
	The Race Issue in 1944	232
	Acclaim in the National Press	241
	Afro-American and White Southern Reactions	245
	The Reception in Scholarly Journals	252
	The Divided Left	257
	The Emerging Orthodoxy and Neglected Alternatives	261
7	The Rise and Fall of a Liberal Orthodoxy	272
	The Growing Legitimacy of Civil Rights	273
	Intercultural Education, Prejudice, and Damage	279
	Racial Liberalism from Brown to the Voting Rights Act	293
	Liberalism in Crisis	302
8	Dreamer, Planner, and Fighter	312
	An American Dilemma in Perspective	312
	The Cold War and McCarthyism	320
	The Challenge of Third World Poverty	332
	America's Critic and Friend	344
	The Dilemma Revisited	352
	The Last Years	359
	Legacy	368
	Notes	373
	Essay on Sources	429
	Index	435

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A wide-sweeping, incisive, and penetrating biography of a great intellect and international figure.—Science



In this magnificent piece of scholarship, Walter Jackson traces the convergence of Myrdal and the American Negro question as it stood in the mid-20th century. . . . An indispensable account of how one extraordinary social scientist traced the long-term origins of America's current dilemma.—Times Higher Education Supplement



Jackson's work is an intellectual history far more than a biographical treatment; it captures the essential interaction of ideas, egos, and events. . . . Here is a treatment of how research and scholarship shaped and were shaped by the real world.—Journal of Southern History



Indispensable reading for anybody who is curious about how a European economist with almost no background in American politics constructed the liberal paradigm of race relations . . . and laid the intellectual basis for government policies in the 1960s. The failure to implement Myrdal's vision remains America's dilemma.—Contemporary Sociology



The deepest, most scholarly and insightful treatment yet written of Gunnar Myrdal and his classic, An American Dilemma. Walter Jackson's volume constitutes a major contribution to a variety of fields—race relations, the history and sociology of twentieth-century American social science, and the history of social policy in the United States. It can be highly recommended to all readers with interests in these fields.—Thomas F. Pettigrew, University of California, Santa Cruz

Editorial Reviews

Myrdal is best known in the US for his influential 1944 book An American dilemma: the Negro problem and modern democracy. Jackson (history, North Carolina U.) investigates how Myrdal came to write this book and why it exerted such a powerful influence on American thought and public policy. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

The deepest, most scholarly and insightful treatment yet written of Gunnar Myrdal and his classic, "An American Dilemma".

Thomas F. Pettigrew, University of California, Santa Cruz

A wide-sweeping, incisive, and penetrating biography of a great intellect and international figure.

"Science"

An intellectual history far more than a biographical treatment; it captures the essential interaction of ideas, egos, and events.

"Journal of Southern History"

"A wide-sweeping, incisive, and penetrating biography of a great intellect and international figure.

"Science""

"The deepest, most scholarly and insightful treatment yet written of Gunnar Myrdal and his classic, "An American Dilemma."

Thomas F. Pettigrew, University of California, Santa Cruz"

An indispensable account of how one extraordinary social scientist traced the long-term origins of America's current dilemma.

"Times Higher Education Supplement"

The failure to implement Myrdal's vision remains America's dilemma.

"Contemporary Sociology"

From the Publisher