Abstract

Benvenuto: Your book, The True and Only Heaven: Progress and its Critics, is about to be published. What does the title mean?

Lasch: It comes from a story by Hawthorne. It tries to reconstruct a tradition of “populist” as opposed to more familiar conservative critiques of progress. What I mean is a kind of social thought and action often embodied in 19th century movements primarily of farmers but also artisans, craftsmen and skilled workers. I also argue that, in some sense, early 20th century syndicalism was the last flowering of this impulse and the things that often go with it: humanitarianism, a national system of education, an increasingly complicated network of philanthropic institutions both public and private.