A01=Ryan C. McIlhenny
Author_Ryan C. McIlhenny
biography
Capitalism
Category=JPFC
Category=JPFF
Category=NHK
Cooperative Commonwealth
Darwin
economic radicalism
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Gilded Age
historians
history
New Economy
Our Destiny
Progressive Era
Progressivism
Reformer
Robber Barons
Scientific Socialism
Social Darwinism
Trusts
Utopian
Product details
- ISBN 9780807183519
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 20 Feb 2025
- Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Ryan C. McIlhenny's American Socialist is the first comprehensive biography of Laurence Gronlund (1844–1899), one of the nation's most persuasive proponents of socialism. Gronlund cultivated a unique polemic against capitalism by advocating positions that synthesized Marxism with Darwinian evolution, rejected class violence, and emphasized cooperation over competition. According to McIlhenny, a belief in a divine force advancing history toward a "cooperative commonwealth" underpinned his philosophy. Gronlund's books enjoyed a wide and dogmatic readership during the late nineteenth century, and his teachings inspired prominent Gilded Age figures, including Edward Bellamy, Leo Tolstoy, and Eugene V. Debs. American Socialist masterfully restores Gronlund to his place among the nation's most important political thinkers.
Ryan C. McIlhenny is professor of liberal arts and humanities at Xing Wei College in Shanghai, China, and the author of To Preach Deliverance to the Captives: Freedom and Slavery in the Protestant Mind of George Bourne, 1780–1845.
