This is a timely book—much more timely than its author knew or even could have known as he wrote it. It is in large part a revisionist history of modern American liberalism, and of the New Deal in particular. David Ciepley's central thesis is (as his title suggests) that through the 1930s, World War II, and the Cold War, American liberalism stood increasingly in the long and very dark shadow of totalitarianism. Ciepley contends that “the encounter with totalitarianism closed the Progressive era and opened the Liberal era” (p. 29). The tar-brush of totalitarianism led liberals to distance themselves from accusations that liberal reformism and governmental activism bore an uncomfortably close resemblance to totalitarianism. And in so doing, liberals lost their nerve—and their way. In the early twentieth century, progressivism was a fighting creed; by mid-century, it had transmuted into a cautious liberalism; and by century's end, it was the “L-word,” enervated and in full retreat. Ciepley narrates this tale of decline through the lens of earlier progressive and later liberal intellectuals and their conservative critics, concluding that “[i]ntellectual discourse has [in recent years] swung in a libertarian direction” (p. 3). He aims to explain that swing.

Ciepley could neither have known nor predicted that there would in 2008–09 be a wild and even violent swing in the other direction, and a revival of something like New Deal activism and interventionism. The false god of the un- or deregulated market has been dethroned. The great value of Ciepley's book resides in his detailed and painstaking recreation of earlier arguments against and in favor of such activism—arguments that are once again echoing through the halls of Congress, across the Internet, and in countless columns of newsprint. As Yogi Berra said (in another context), “It's déjà vu all over again!”

Or maybe not. This time around, American liberals don't have a totalitarian “other” to contend with. There is now no Nazi Germany, no Fascist Italy, no Soviet Union to overshadow and stall the liberal (or progressive) project. To be sure, this doesn't stop conservatives from labeling anything or anyone they don't like as “socialist” or “communist”; it's just that the accusations fail to resonate and simply don't seem to stick anymore.

Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century progressivism placed a premium on active government, not only in the economy, but in morality as well. It promoted fair dealing in markets (which required a degree of market regulation) and unflinchingly advocated the cultivation of virtue in citizens. Prominent progressives such as Herbert Croly and Walter Lippmann argued that in an increasingly complex world, technical expertise must replace bumbling amateurism, and technical “mastery” must surpass planless “drift.” Little heed was paid to such Cassandras during the boom times of the Roaring Twenties, but (as in the Iliad) Cassandra proved prophetic. As financial markets crashed and the Great Depression ensued, free-market ideology was discredited and progressivism came into its own. By the time of Franklin Roosevelt's election in 1932, the country was receptive to new and nontraditional approaches to governance—to increased regulation of banks, of financial markets, of production for use (instead of profit); to planning and large-scale government programs.

But, as Ciepley notes, the coming of the New Deal coincided with the rise of totalitarian regimes in Russia, Germany, and Italy. These regimes engaged in extensive planning and exerted considerable control over production and other economic matters. Under the guise of educating citizens, they indoctrinated them and made them march in lockstep. Conservative critics of the New Deal were quick to draw unflattering comparisons between these regimes and the Roosevelt administration, claiming that Roosevelt would soon be a dictator, if he wasn't one already. The Hearst and Gannett newspapers beat this drum at every turn, and with some success (pp. 139–40). The coming of the Second World War provided something of a respite from such attacks, as it made such appeals less appealing, and a world war on two fronts could hardly be fought without extensive federal funding and central planning. One result of the war was a shift away from “social Keynesianism” (welfare and workfare programs) to “military Keynesianism,” i.e., government spending on weapons of war (p. 97). Spending of the latter sort soon dwarfed social-welfare expenditures, and finally ended the Great Depression.

As the Soviet Union swallowed up Eastern Europe and threatened Western Europe as well, the “totalitarian” stigma returned with a vengeance. Liberals inside and outside the American academy were cowed by red-baiting politicians—Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy were only two of the most vocal among them—who often equated liberalism with communism, or at least with being “soft” on communism. Eager to establish their patriotic bona fides, liberals beat a hasty retreat from their own cherished beliefs and principles, leaving liberalism so watered down as to be almost unrecognizable. In economics, liberalism went from being a vigorous defender of planning for the public interest to defending a new kind of liberalism—a pluralistic liberalism of contending interest groups (Part 3)—and in law and morality, from a politics of virtue to a political philosophy of state neutrality (Part 4), which, in turn, created the conditions for the “culture wars” of recent years (Chapter 16).

Ciepley's is a plausible and interesting story, and he tells it well. But an equally plausible alternative explanation might invoke the idea of “reform fatigue.” As Arthur Schlesinger Sr. noted in “Tides of American Politics” (Yale Review, Dec. 1939), the United States has historically oscillated every sixteen years or so between reform and retrenchment, between governmental activism and quiescence. He predicted (correctly) that the era of liberal activism would end in 1947–48. Never once invoking the threat of totalitarianism, Schlesinger held that political moments and movements run their course. So it was with the progressive politics of the New Deal. So now it seems to be with free-market conservatism's long run. The tide, it appears, has turned.