If you are searching for an intelligent dose of hope in these difficult times, this is the book for you. The Creative Society presents an ambitious reinterpretation of the American experience from 1890 to the present. Louis Galambos’ main argument is that the professional class created the innovations, institutional frameworks, and organizational designs that allowed the country to grow, and to face the various challenges encountered along the way. Not all of the challenges were solved successfully, and (at least some) Americans paid a price for the institutional, intellectual, and moral failures during the process of economic development. But this optimistic book leaves us in awe of the ability of the American society to reinvent itself, and hopeful for the years to come.

The Creative Society is organized chronologically, starting with the problems that professionals faced during the consolidation of American power from 1890 to 1930. Urban planners and educational leaders had to confront the agglomeration of population in cities, the health crises in urban areas, and the school reform necessary to produce the human capital to take advantage of the Second Industrial Revolution. The technical gap with Europe was closed over this period by focusing the entrepreneurial activity in large research labs, and by transforming the education system to produce high skilled scientists and technical experts. Lawyers also rose to prominence as they created the regulatory framework that delimited the role of large businesses and shaped the welfare state. Diplomats appear to have been the laggards in professionalizing, as America wavered between a strong presence in some parts of the world and isolationism. Those fortunate to join the professional ranks benefitted greatly, but others lagged behind. African Americans, women, and immigrants struggled to advance and, in what becomes a central theme of the book, when they did progress, they achieved it by taking advantage of a forgiving and practical education system.

The Great Depression and the New Deal programs brought attention to the accounting and the economics professions, and World War II showed that the United States had finally acquired the expertise in the military and foreign services that was lacking earlier in the century. The end of the war left the lawyers, economists, doctors, scientists, engineers, and managers who had helped navigate these difficult two crises in a position of power and social recognition that was sustained for over two decades. The reputation of these experts and professionals was severely bruised during the 1970s. Political leaders struggled with the war in Vietnam, stagflation, Watergate, and major corruption scandals. A focus on personal interest, entry barriers, and the lack of competitiveness with foreign products hurt the standing of lawyers, doctors, scientists and managers in society. From 1981 to 2001 America solved this crisis by focusing on achieving efficiency and innovation through a process of creative destruction. Although this solution came at the expense of equity and economic security for many, some members of the previously excluded groups were finally able to break the glass ceiling. They are still outnumbered, but women, immigrants and, to a lesser degree, African Americans are making their way into Ivy League schools, science labs, and top managerial positions. Big challenges remain, including restructuring a public school system that seems broken, dealing with the aftermath of the recent financial crisis, and repairing the international standing of the country. To most of us, these problems seem daunting and fill us with fear for the future. Yet, as I closed the book, I found new hope that the still-vibrant professional class will once again generate the creative ideas that have fueled the country for over a century.

The Creative Society brims with ideas, personal histories, and, candidly, the history of the Galambos family. There are no tables or figures, and numbers are used sparsely. It is thus difficult to gauge the magnitude of the transformations at the center of the book. There is no quantitative sense of how the professional ranks were filled, and we do not learn how these individuals were rewarded for their successes and penalized for their failures. Instead, we are guided through the life stories of some extraordinary men and women who triumphed despite their origins. It is inspiring, and it forces the reader to rethink his or her own personal history in the light of the author's argument. But it is also a partial view of the American experience that largely ignores the many millions that remain excluded from the professional ranks, or the disappointment of those who worked hard to join them and yet continue to experience economic hardships.

By attempting to do too much, the book fails to achieve depth in its analysis. A mere 300 pages cover 120 years of history, and about ten distinct professions, each highlighted only at times of great success or great failure. There is no explanation for how these occupations evolved from a craft to a profession, and why some professional occupations have soared while others diminished in importance over the century. I suspect the lack of questioning lays partly in the complexity of the answer. Discussing why management was not as professionalized as medicine or law circa the 1960s, the author speculates that businesses may not have wanted to encourage high professional standards to avoid yielding rents to executives, while managers may only have been able to obtain skills through on-the-job training (pp. 138–39). This discussion ignores the tremendous challenge in designing a body of knowledge general enough to be applicable in a variety of organizations, as wonderfully described in Carter A. Daniel's MBA: The First Century (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1998). To this day, research in corporate governance struggles to understand what it is that CEOs do, and what constitutes good managerial practice in firms, hospitals, and other organizations.

I was also frustrated with the lack of analysis offered to many of the questions and thoughts put forth. The author argues that the crisis of the 1970s demonstrated that “the country needed effective leadership to use and control the professionals and their expertise. […] Expertise without strong leadership could be dangerous…” (p. 201). But how is this achieved? What kind of institutions have we built to lead and control our experts?

While many topics are only dealt with superficially, the astounding number of references will allow the interested reader to follow any topic in more depth. In fact, graduate students in economic history could easily find research topics by exploring the many ideas and institutional details given in the text and footnotes. For the rest of us, this book offers a provocative, novel, and compelling narrative of the trials and triumphs of the American society—certainly a wonderful achievement.