The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920 by Ballard C. Campbell (review)

IF 0.8 2区 历史学 Q1 HISTORY
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Ballard Campbell argues in this book that American state-building has been characterized by a paradox between theory and action: a strong commitment to anti-statist values on the one hand, with a practical necessity for enhanced state action on the other. Those immediate needs, such as physical infrastructure, security, education, and others, led over time to increased state capacity as an administrative apparatus was built to handle these various functions, he argues. The anti-statist values continued apace in our culture but ultimately could not arrest the growth of government. Campbell traces these shifts from the colonial period all the way through the early twentieth century, covering well-trodden soil on how government expanded at the local, state, and national levels. The book contains a wealth of information on what government did and how it did it, including an original collection of state-level actions (contained in the Appendix) that will be of much use to scholars. The greatest contribution of this work will be for those looking for a general treatment of the subject material, as it covers a wide range of time and a similarly wide range of governmental activities. Students in advanced undergraduate courses or graduate students who need an overview of state-building throughout early American history will benefit from reading this work. As for its contributions to the scholarly literature, since it is a work of synthesis, scholars will most benefit from the above mentioned dataset on state actions as well as wrestling with its argument about the \"paradox\" of American state-building, although even this is familiar to students of these questions. For example, in his work Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present (Princeton, NJ, 2015), Gary Gerstle makes a similar contention about the tension in the Constitution between personal liberties and limited government on the one hand, versus the notion of \"the public good\" that was more prevalent at the state level. In the field of American political development, political scientists have long debated these questions as well; most recently, in Stephen Skrowronek's Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive (Oxford, UK, 2021), the authors home in on the noteworthy friction between the \"unity\" in executive strength within the constitutional framework as compared to the large administrative apparatus that undermines that theoretical unity. No doubt, Campbell's thesis must be situated alongside these others and is one scholars must contend with. [End Page 341] Campbell has produced an important work that should be read by scholars of the early republic who are interested in continuing to explore these fundamental debates. In particular, Chapters 3–6 will be worthwhile for readers of this journal as Campbell moves from the founding of the republic through to the cusp of the Civil War. We will likely continue debating the nature of state-building in early America for many years to come. William D. Adler William D. Adler is associate professor of political science at Northeastern Illinois University. He is the author of Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860 (Philadelphia, 2021) as well as articles on the early United States, the American presidency, and American political development. Copyright © 2023 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic","PeriodicalId":45213,"journal":{"name":"JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/jer.2023.a897994","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920 by Ballard C. Campbell William D. Adler (bio) Keywords State-building, Early national state, Role of Government The Paradox of Power: Statebuilding in America, 1754–1920. By Ballard C. Campbell. (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2021. Pp. 392. Paper, $34.95.) Scholars of the early U.S. have long been interested in how state-building occurred, but a massive revival of attention to the subject in the past twenty years has produced a wave of important research. The Paradox of Power enters this conversation with an impressive contribution to our understanding of the early national state through a synthetic analysis of how [End Page 340] government grew, not only nationally but at the local and state levels as well. Ballard Campbell argues in this book that American state-building has been characterized by a paradox between theory and action: a strong commitment to anti-statist values on the one hand, with a practical necessity for enhanced state action on the other. Those immediate needs, such as physical infrastructure, security, education, and others, led over time to increased state capacity as an administrative apparatus was built to handle these various functions, he argues. The anti-statist values continued apace in our culture but ultimately could not arrest the growth of government. Campbell traces these shifts from the colonial period all the way through the early twentieth century, covering well-trodden soil on how government expanded at the local, state, and national levels. The book contains a wealth of information on what government did and how it did it, including an original collection of state-level actions (contained in the Appendix) that will be of much use to scholars. The greatest contribution of this work will be for those looking for a general treatment of the subject material, as it covers a wide range of time and a similarly wide range of governmental activities. Students in advanced undergraduate courses or graduate students who need an overview of state-building throughout early American history will benefit from reading this work. As for its contributions to the scholarly literature, since it is a work of synthesis, scholars will most benefit from the above mentioned dataset on state actions as well as wrestling with its argument about the "paradox" of American state-building, although even this is familiar to students of these questions. For example, in his work Liberty and Coercion: The Paradox of American Government from the Founding to the Present (Princeton, NJ, 2015), Gary Gerstle makes a similar contention about the tension in the Constitution between personal liberties and limited government on the one hand, versus the notion of "the public good" that was more prevalent at the state level. In the field of American political development, political scientists have long debated these questions as well; most recently, in Stephen Skrowronek's Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive (Oxford, UK, 2021), the authors home in on the noteworthy friction between the "unity" in executive strength within the constitutional framework as compared to the large administrative apparatus that undermines that theoretical unity. No doubt, Campbell's thesis must be situated alongside these others and is one scholars must contend with. [End Page 341] Campbell has produced an important work that should be read by scholars of the early republic who are interested in continuing to explore these fundamental debates. In particular, Chapters 3–6 will be worthwhile for readers of this journal as Campbell moves from the founding of the republic through to the cusp of the Civil War. We will likely continue debating the nature of state-building in early America for many years to come. William D. Adler William D. Adler is associate professor of political science at Northeastern Illinois University. He is the author of Engineering Expansion: The U.S. Army and Economic Development, 1787–1860 (Philadelphia, 2021) as well as articles on the early United States, the American presidency, and American political development. Copyright © 2023 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic
《权力的悖论:1754-1920年美国的国家建设》作者:巴拉德·c·坎贝尔
《权力的悖论:1754-1920年美国的国家建设》作者:巴拉德·c·坎贝尔威廉·d·阿德勒巴拉德·c·坎贝尔著。(劳伦斯:堪萨斯大学出版社,2021年。392页。纸,34.95美元)。长期以来,美国早期的学者们一直对国家建设的过程感兴趣,但在过去20年里,对这一主题的大规模关注复兴产生了一波重要的研究。《权力的悖论》通过对政府如何发展的综合分析,不仅在全国范围内,而且在地方和州的层面上,对我们对早期民族国家的理解做出了令人印象深刻的贡献。巴拉德·坎贝尔在书中认为,美国国家建设的特点是理论与行动之间的悖论:一方面坚定地致力于反国家主义价值观,另一方面又有加强国家行动的实际必要性。他认为,随着时间的推移,这些紧迫的需求,如物质基础设施、安全、教育等,导致国家能力的增强,因为建立了一个管理机构来处理这些不同的职能。反中央集权的价值观在我们的文化中继续快速发展,但最终无法阻止政府的发展。坎贝尔追溯了从殖民时期一直到20世纪初的这些转变,涵盖了政府如何在地方、州和国家层面上扩张的老生滥调。这本书包含了大量关于政府做了什么以及如何做的信息,包括对学者非常有用的州一级行动的原始收集(包含在附录中)。这本书的最大贡献将是为那些寻求对主题材料进行一般处理的人,因为它涵盖了广泛的时间范围和同样广泛的政府活动。读高级本科课程的学生或需要了解美国早期历史上国家建设概况的研究生将从这本书中受益。至于它对学术文献的贡献,由于它是一本综合性的著作,学者们将最大程度地受益于上面提到的关于国家行为的数据集,以及它关于美国国家建设“悖论”的争论,尽管这些问题的学生对此也很熟悉。例如,在他的著作《自由与强制:美国政府从建国到现在的悖论》(普林斯顿,新泽西,2015)中,加里·格斯特尔(Gary Gerstle)对宪法中个人自由和有限政府之间的紧张关系,以及在州一级更为普遍的“公共利益”概念,提出了类似的论点。在美国政治发展领域,政治学家对这些问题也争论了很久;最近,在斯蒂芬·斯克罗内克(Stephen Skrowronek)的《陷入困境的共和国的幽灵:深层政府和统一行政机构》(牛津,英国,2021年)中,作者关注了宪法框架内行政力量的“统一”与破坏理论统一的大型行政机构之间值得注意的摩擦。毫无疑问,坎贝尔的论文必须与其他论文并列,并且是学者们必须与之抗衡的。坎贝尔创作了一部重要的著作,对于那些对继续探索这些基本争论感兴趣的共和早期学者来说,这本书值得一读。特别是,第3-6章对于这本杂志的读者来说是值得的,因为坎贝尔从共和国的建立一直到内战的顶峰。在未来的许多年里,我们可能会继续辩论美国早期国家建设的本质。威廉·d·阿德勒是东北伊利诺伊大学政治学副教授。他是《工程扩张:美国陆军和经济发展,1787-1860》(费城,2021年)的作者,以及关于美国早期、美国总统和美国政治发展的文章。版权所有©2023美国早期共和国历史学家协会
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
70
期刊介绍: The Journal of the Early Republic is a quarterly journal committed to publishing the best scholarship on the history and culture of the United States in the years of the early republic (1776–1861). JER is published for the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. SHEAR membership includes an annual subscription to the journal.
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