The Uneasy State: The United States from 1915 to 1945

In this major interpretive history of the reform era, Barry Karl presents an imaginative and thoughtful perspective on America’s quest for political, economic, and cultural nationalism. Challenging accepted interpretations, he argues that the two world wars and the depression did not successfully unite the country so that a national managerial state could emerge as it did in other industrial nations. Karl draws on an impressive array of sources to support his position, offering insightful comments on popular culture--movies, novels, comic strips, and detective stories--and brilliant analyses of technological change and its impact.

Karl shows how Americans approached the central dilemmas of modern life, such as the clash between planned efficiency and autonomous individualism, which they managed to patch over but never fully resolve. Above all, he finds that America’s commitment to the autonomous individual is both an aspiration and a curse.

Barry D. Karl (1927 2010) was the Norman and Edna Freehling EmeritusProfessorof History at the University of Chicago. He was also a professor in the College and in the Graduate School of Public Policy Studies.

Karl received a BA from the University of Louisville in 1949, an MA from the University of Chicago in 1951, and a PhD from Harvard University in 1961. He served on the faculties of Harvard, Washington University in St. Louis and Brown University before joining the University of Chicago faculty in 1971.He was chair of the History Department at Chicago from 1976 to 1979.＂