The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism

by Robert William Fogel

Book Overview

Robert William Fogel was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1993. "To take a trip around the mind of Robert Fogel, one of the grand old men of American economic history, is a rare treat. At every turning, you come upon some shiny pearl of information."-- The Economist In this broad-thinking and profound piece of history, Robert William Fogel synthesizes an amazing range of data into a bold and intriguing view of America's past and future--one...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0226256626
• ISBN13: 9780226256627
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Length: 383 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Spiritual Programs for the Underclass

These are not happy days for liberals. Something seems to have gone wrong with the government of experts-like-us that liberals have built over the last century. The idea was that poverty was "not a personal failure, but a failure of society." Liberals reversed societal failure, Fogel writes, with government programs to mitigate material inequality. The result is that the material condition of the poor is much better than it was a century ago. But the spiritual condition of the poor has deteriorated. Things like "drug addiction, alcoholism, births to unmarried teenage girls, rape, the battery of women and children, broken families, violent teenage death, and crime are generally more severe today than they were a century ago." This is a problem for progressives, Fogel realizes, because unless they get their act together and do something about the "maldistribution of spiritual resources" they are going to lose their political power and their program of egalitarianism. Fogel sees new hope for progressives in the Great Awakening model developed by William G. McLoughlin in Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform. The idea is that each existential crisis in American life leads to a religious Great Awakening, and thence to political reform and renewal. If liberals can co-opt the current religious revival then they can develop programs to provide the poor in spirit with spiritual values such as a "sense of purpose," a "vision of opportunity," a "sense of the mainstream of work and life," and so on. Never mind that such a program of spiritual values would amount to a government church. Still, this is a worthy look at the progressives' Big Problem and deserves its four stars.

Four stars...

I found Robert Fogel's perspective on the American cyclical progression of political/religious synthesis enlightening, and refreshing.Fogel's secular views chime in now and then, but they are under a veneer of worldly experience, not biased partisanism.I particularly found this book useful, (as I am pursuing a political science degree), and revealing pertaining to the history of American society, and the foundation of American government.

Beyond Utilitarianism

Robert Fogel already demonstrated, decades ago, that he could apply econometrics to historical data to good effect. He is a founder of cliometrics, the systematic quantitative study of historical data. From railroads to slavery to nutritional improvements on work capacity, he has had few peers in penetrating tough and politically charged topics.In this book he asks readers to conjoin political and religious movements with deeper longings for satisfaction from living. Thanks to Richard Easterlin we know that money does not buy happiness. Fogel explores what long-term tendencies in the American past sought to look beyond Benthamite utility for larger meanings. His search will not always be satifying to all readers, particularly those expecting to find a Marxian dialectic at the root of positive change.In reading the book, non-specialists get a special treat: a non-technical survey of factors that brought on the unprecedented improvements in levels of living in North Atlantic countries over the past two hundred years.

A Must Read for Understanding America's Past and Present

I am a former teaching assistant for Professor Fogel and read his book as both a student and as his assistant. I have discussed the book with him in private and listened to him defend its propositions before skeptical students. I am also a student of America's religious history. I am not entirely uncritical of his argument but I believe it to be a must read for understanding where we've come from. Despite one reviewer's (Lloyd) misinformed aspertions, Professor Fogel is an historian of the first rank. He won his Nobel prize for his economic history of slavery. He is one of the founding fathers and still one of the best practitioners of scientific economic history (cliometrics). But rather than allowing his empirical approach to history make his writing arid and mathematical, his evident love of the past and its complexities shines through. It is enough of a testiment to the man's extra-ordinary ability to be objective while still being intensely interested that he, as a secular person, is able to correctly credit evangelicals and other religious people with most of the significant ethical advances in American history.I believe the above reviews from the Wall Street Journal and Mr. Morris do a sufficient job. I am here to recommend it to you. John B. Carpenter jamits@juno.com

An Invaluable Frame-of-Reference

Fogel's purpose is to provide "a framework for analyzing the movements that shaped the egalitarian creed in America." Throughout U.S. history, there have been several of these movements ("Great Awakenings") which help to explain all manner of major transformations. The First (1730-1820) is manifest in the American Revolution. Fogel observes: "Steeped in the rationalism of the Enlightenment, and harboring suspicions of the established churches, the leaders of the Revolution tended to view all political issues through the prism of natural rights rather than divine revelation." As Fogel explains, the leaders of the The Second (roughly 1800 until 1870) "preached that the American mission was to build God's kingdom on earth....An array of reform movements [eg temperance, abolition of slavery, elimination of graft in government] sought to make America a fit place for the Second Coming of Christ." The Third (from about 1890 until the 1930s) involved a continuation of certain reforms as well as the introduction of others led by modernists and Social Gospelers who "laid the basis for the welfare state, providing both the ideological foundation and the politic drive for the labor reforms of the 1930, 1940s and 1950s, and for the civil rights reforms of the 1950 and 1960s, and for the new feminist reforms of the late 1960s and early 1970s." In Fogel's view, the Fourth Great Awakening now underway has resulted in attacks on material corruption, the rise of pro-life and pro-family movements, campaigns for values-oriented school curricula, an expansion of tax revolt, and an attack on entitlements. Fogel observes: All of the Great Awakenings are "not merely, nor primarily, religious phenomena. They are primarily political phenomena in which the evangelical churches represent the leading edge of an ideological and political response to accumulated technological, economic, and social changes that undermined the received culture." As stated previously, Fogel's purpose is to provide "a framework for analyzing the movements that shaped the egalitarian creed in America." In process, he places the Fourth Great Awakening within an historical frame-of-reference. Here is the sequence of subjects analyzed:Introduction: The Egalitarian Creed in AmericaOne: The Fourth Great Awakening, the Political Realignment of the 1990s, and the Potential for Egalitarian ReformTwo: Technological Change, Cultural Transformations, and Political CrisesThree: The Triumph of the Modern Egalitarian EthicFour: The Egalitarian Revolution of the Twentieth CenturyFive: The Emergence of a Postmodern Egalitarian AgendaAfterword: Whither Goes Our World?When concluding his analysis, Fogel suggests that the spiritual struggles for those in future generations will be "more complex and more intense than those of my generation." Nonetheless, Fogel hopes they will possess "a maturity and intellectual vitality that will help [them] find better solutions than we have