Why the American century?

by Olivier Zunz

Ever since Henry Luce, the publisher of Tims and Life, proclaimed in 1941 that the twentieth century is the "American Century," we have been trying to understand our role in it. In a bold reinterpretation of our country's rise to world power, Olivier Zunz shows how Americans appropriated the twentieth century; America's ascent was not the result of Europe's self-destruction. By the Second World War, Zunz argues, American policymakers, corporate managers, engineers, and social scientists were managing the country from within a powerful matrix of institutions devoted to festering new knowledge. These men and women promoted a new social contract of abundance which was capable, in theory, of deradicalizing class, and their efforts helped create an American middle class defined by consumer behavior. In the name of democracy, they promoted a controversial ideology that stressed the value of respecting differences among people. The result was a culture that allowed Americans to intervene on t