The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Own Time, 1912-1917

by Henry F. May, David A. Hollinger (Foreword)

A vivid account of the cultural politics of the era just prior to American entry into World War I. Henry May provide sensitive, balanced portraits of both the 'genteel' tradition inherited from the 19th century and the 'modern' enthusiasms that flowered during the 1920's. But May demonstrates that the legendary revolt against Victorianism was well under way before the war.

May's focus is on the ideas displayed in literature and in political argumentation. His cast of characters includes William James, Emma Goldman, H. L. Mencken, Randolph Bourne, Charles W. Eliot, Theodore Roosevelt, Sherwood Anderson, Lincoln Steffens, Max Eastman, and Woodrow Wilson.

The Columbia University Press Morningside edition includes a new Foreword by American intellectual historian David A. Hollinger that discusses recent scholarship on the issues addressed by May's book, and also inteprets The End of American Innocence as an important artifact of the American 1950's. May himself has written an Afterword responding to commentaries on his book.

Genres: American History, History

439 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1959

Reviews

[Xan Shadowflutter · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book came highly recommended as a must read for anyone interested in the intellectual history of the U.S. I beg to differ. This book is for those who wish to narrowly focus only on the changing schools of thought in literature during the progress era. No one else need apply. In fact, this book is so narrowly focused that May spends almost all his time in the year 1912, the year he says things began to change; and like a tightly wound coil, whenever he wanders away from 1912, like, for instance, to the war, it quickly snaps back to 1912. You will spend way too much time in 1912 wondering why. Personally I think it's silly to point to any one year as the year when change started, and impossible to do so when talking about the beginnings of the progressive era, a time where political, economic, and social forces stirred together to a create turmoil everywhere.

But never you mind about the political, economic, and social forces, never you mind about the labor riots, the lynchings, the immigration clashes, Jim Crow, and the muckraking that so characterized the era, because you'll never come across any of that reading this book. How can you discuss the changes in intellectual thought without mentioning events that likely caused those changes? No, in this book literature is the beginning and end all -- it's self-perpetuating.

But the faults don't end there. How can you mention Mable Dodge without discussing the regular gatherings of intellectuals and writers at her apartment on 5th avenue, a cornucopia of who's who of the very topic you are talking about? How? And don't get me started on what I consider to be May's too high of a regard for Woodrow Wilson. Sadly, the rarefied air here will probably give you a bloody nose.