In The Long Gilded Age: American Capitalism and the Lessons of a New World Order, Leon Fink draws on his broad knowledge of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century U.S. history. His book sets upon a number of ambitious tasks. Fink attempts to connect current economic life in the United States with the conflict between industrial leaders and labor unions of the Gilded Age. He also attempts to place this conflict within the context of the international flow of political ideologies and the general trend of economic internationalism of the time. Ultimately, Fink argues that at certain moments during these conflicts, a different choice of action made by key players at key times could have dramatically altered the course of U.S. history.

In making his case for the seriousness of these moments of choice, Fink separates the conflicts into a series of disparate but connected movements in time. Chapter 1 provides a historical overview of the competing socio-economic ideologies that pervade the United States during the Gilded Age and how American individualism came to mean something different for different societal groups. Freedom, as a term, became divided between the union-backed “free labor,” in which a workforce could be assured of job stability, security, and a family-supporting wage (p. 27), and the court-backed “freedom of contract,” in which individual workers were allowed to contract with whomever they desired for whatever wage they agreed upon without interference from unions (p. 27). Fink connects union sentiment with competitive pressures of women in the workforce (pp. 18–19) and importation of Chinese labor (p. 21), arguing that free labor sentiment became increasingly difficult for labor to balance between individual economic rights and collective national standards (p. 31).

Chapter 2 more directly deals with the conflicts of the times by placing industry and labor into the settings of the Homestead Strike of 1892 and the Pullman Strike of 1894. Fink juxtaposes the key industrial players, Andrew Carnegie and George Pullman respectively, with the labor leaders of the time, John McLuckie and Eugene Debs, respectively. The chapter centers on the consequences of these strikes for the structure of American Progressivism. Carnegie, by using violence to subdue the Homestead Strike, showed that popular opinion would not tolerate that level of violence (p. 61) and future industrial leaders needed to look for alternative solutions. Pullman's experience showed the industrial wing of Progressivism that “purely voluntary good-will gestures between labor and management” (p. 60) would not succeed, leading Progressives to move toward a more top-down approach to economic rationalization. Fink documents this shift to top-down approaches through the increasing calls for governmental action from the National Civic Federation (pp. 60–62).

Chapter 3 documents the overlap of socialism and the Progressive ideology as it was manifested in universities. This chapter is by far the clearest and strongest of the book. The University of Wisconsin rose to great importance for both the socialist and Progressive ideologies with the arrival of labor economist Richard T. Ely in 1892 (p. 63). Ely was able academically to synthesize socialist ideals with Progressive reforms in an academic setting. In doing so, he also began to solidify a school of thought that was deeply antithetical to economic liberalism. Ely extended his ideological reach by working with graduate students who filtered into other universities upon completion of their degree (p. 64). Ely also became politically influential in modern universities through “his contribution to the formalization of academic freedom” (p. 80), to protect his socialistic-Progressive ideas from attack by the university administration.

Chapter 4 describes labor's attempt to gain economic and negotiation power equal to that of industry without resorting to governmental intervention. Fink argues that the individualist streak in the United States prevented organized labor from reaching out for state assistance. A lack of legal protection led to a weaker labor movement than that found in nations where the state was more directly involved in labor-industrial relations (pp. 116–117). To make this argument, Fink illustrates the labor movement's failure to fully secure the support of the National Civic Federation (pp. 102–104). In regards to this point, Fink neglects to fully take into account the possibility of regulatory capture, and he misses how the National Civic Federation was captured by industrial leadership (G. Kolko. The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900–1916. New York: Free Press, 1963).

Chapter 5 describes disparate parts of the socialist tradition both in the United States and abroad. Fink argues that the failure of socialism to garner continued support in the United States was in great deal due to the fractured nature of the movement. From scientific socialism (p. 124) to Christian socialism (pp. 133–134), across the spectrum no group was willing to sacrifice its own peculiar ideological purity in order to work with one another. Each group, with its roots in a different international source, failed to cooperate and so failed to form a coherent socialist movement in the Gilded Age.

The Long Gilded Age provides a historic overview of a great number of interconnected events from the age. However, that history is for the most part provided in a non-linear and somewhat confusing way. The non-linear history is also often dotted with ideological statements and counterfactual accounts of how socialist thought would have found more secure purchase in the United States were it not for the pure callousness of industrial leaders (see Chapter 2) and the goodhearted but inept actions of key labor leaders (see Chapter 4). Fink shows deep knowledge of the period, but that knowledge does not always present itself in clear fashion. Chapter 3 is a fantastic account of the Progressive influence on the modern university, as well as a clear exposition of how universities and schools of thoughts can greatly influence the path of history. That chapter in itself is almost enough to recommend the book to readers of this Journal; however, the weaknesses in causal connections and lack of a chronological narrative in the other chapters leads this reviewer to think that other books may be a more efficient use of their time.