“...Mr. Ekirch has read widely and deeply in the history of the United States. America, in Mr. Ekirch’s view, began in the ‘liberal’ tradition of western civilization. This liberalism was in part a doctrine—the freedom of the individual. But in addition to being a doctrine it was a habit of mind, a tendency toward the reasonable, the tolerant, and the moderate. Since the American Revolution the story of the United States has been one of the steady decline of this liberalism. In recent times the welfare state and the military state have pushed political, economic, and ideological centralization to a point where ‘all the major values of the American liberal tradition’ are gravely menaced... Mr. Ekirch systemically applies his thesis to each period in American history...”

– Saturday Review

“Ekirch argues in The Decline of American Liberalism that the main trend since the American Revolution has been to augment concentration of economic and state power and thus whittle away individual freedom. Mr. Ekirch admits that the decline of the liberal tradition has been paralleled by the advance of other philosophies and values—but his sustained argument pulls few punches in its well-written, hard-hitting pages. Professor Ekirch has written an intelligent and important book. That such a book could be written and published proves that liberalism in America can still be thoughtfully interpreted and eloquently championed.”

– Merle E. Curti, Pulitzer Prizewinner; Professor of History, University of Wisconsin (in the New York Times)

“Brilliant, penetrating and often illuminating study of American political history...”

– The New Republic

“The New Deal and its successors substituted the ideals of security and equality for freedom and diversity. It is a formidable indictment, and Mr. Ekirch marshals a large body of evidence for it—enough to make his book stimulating and rewarding reading.”

– The Economist

“To most people the term ‘liberalism’ is confusing. Some people equate it with the New Deal, others with any kind of leftist philosophy. In this powerful and brilliant book, Arthur Ekirch uses the term in the only way it can be properly used—in its historical and classical sense—not as a program, nor even as a well-defined system, but more as an attitude of mind. . . . Everyone who respects the worth and dignity of individual human beings and dislikes totalitarianism can read this distinguished book with profit.”

– Dumas Malone, Pulitzer Prize Winner; Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation Biographer-in-Residence and Professor Emeritus of History, University of Virginia (in the History Book Club Review)

“Taking as his standpoint the classical conception of liberalism as an attitude and including belief in limited representative government and economic freedom for the individual, Arthur Ekirch traces its decline from the beginning of our national history. . . . Professor Ekirch has contributed a stimulating interpretation and survey of American development. His chapters on the growth of the garrison state and the cult of national loyalty are a devastating commentary which has the virtue of relating these development to long term trends in this society.”

– The Nation

“The Decline of American Liberalism is an extremely interesting, thoughtful, and valuable book. It is one of the most stimulating surveys of American history that I have seen in years.”

– Allan Nevins, Pulitzer Prizewinner; Harmsworth Professor of American History, Oxford University