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his era and to devise ways to prevent their recurrence in the
future. The experience with the high tariff policies of the interwar
years, combined with his role as a Wall Street lawyer specializing
in international business, convinced him of the value of free trade
and stable currencies. The experience of World War 11, combined
with an abiding admiration for Woodrow Wilson, convinced him
of the need, in Pruessen’s words, for “a strong mature United
States to accept its responsibilities. Americans, he felt, could lead
others away from economic autarchy and its inevitable political
and military repercussions, could lead others toward a more integrated and rational community of nations” (p. 263).
Pruessen generally praises Dulles for his thinking about world
affairs in the 1930s and early 1940s, a time when Dulles emphasized the economic causes of war and warned of the dangers of
moralism and chauvinism in describing the Axis powers. The
author is much more critical of Dulles’s stridently anti-Soviet
stance in the late 1940s, of his “increasing tendency to fall prey
to the classic trap of confusing national interests with universally
desirable goals” (pp. 505-506). In an excellent chapter that analyzes the reasons for Dulles’s shift to the Cold War position in
1945-1946, Pruessen suggests the importance of peer pressure
among policy makers in lining up against Russia. He also emphasizes Dulles’s belief “that Moscow was resisting, and blatantly resisting, the kinds of international reforms which he
wanted to see accomplished in the postwar era” (p. 289). While
in his diplomatic work for the Harry S. Truman administration
Dulles “went far beyond any simplistic Cold Warrior’s style” (p.
337); in his speeches and articles he dealt with East-West relations in black/white terms-a pattern that he would continue as
secretary of state in the 1950s.
Unfortunately, Pruessen’s otherwise excellent work is less
than carefully edited. The book is wordy and repetitive in places;
symptomatic of the problem is that at least three quotes from
Dulles are used twice, and frequently the reader has the sense of
having encountered a specific point before. Properly edited, the
volume would have been more impressive at 409 pages than it is
currently at 509. More awareness of the findings of other scholars,
especially for the 1940s, might also have strengthened the author’s conclusions.
Earlham College, Richmond, Ind.
Ralph B. Levering
The Troubled Crusade: American Education, 1945-1980. By Diane Ravitch. (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1983.
Pp. xiii, 384. Notes, note on sources, index. $19.95.)
Diane Ravitch concludes her survey of American education
since World War I1 on an upbeat note: “Those who have labored
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on behalf of American education have seen so many barriers scaled,
so much hatred dispelled, so many possibilities remaining to provide the basis for future reconciliation. To believe in education is
to believe in the future, to believe in what may be accomplished
through the disciplined use of intelligence, allied with cooperation
and good will” (p. 330). The Troubled Crusade is hardly a celebration of the triumphs of modern schooling, however. On the
contrary, it is a catalog of the trials and tribulations of public
schooling and higher education, with a central focus on the battles
in Washington. Her thesis is that following World War I1 the
locus of power shifted from the local college and school system to
the president, congress, and the supreme court.
At war’s end a myriad of school problems came to the nation’s
attention, and they have remained to the present. Three issues
were paramount: federal aid, church-state relations, and racial
justice. And they were interrelated. The Catholic Church opposed
federal funding because parochial schools were excluded, and this
opposition, combined with conservative political forces, prevented
federal spending for two decades. Another battle was fought over
the meaning and role of progressive education, a legacy of earlier
decades. While she applauds some of progressive education’s contributions, she sympathizes with those critics of the 1950s (and
since) who preferred a return to “intellectual development and
mastery of subject matter” (p. 55). And they won, or did they?
Her discussion of the influence of the Red Scare on education
is concise, starting with an explanation of the role of radical
politics in the 1930s. She is less than sympathetic with the purges,
concluding that “when the rage for conformity ended, it was like
a fever that broke” (p. 113). The system had, after all, survived
(but many teachers had not). Her discussion of race and education,
spread over two chapters, traces the move from desegregation to
affirmative action, from a civil rights consensus to conflict and
confusion. Equally disturbing were the changes taking place in
higher education, particularly the campus rebellions in the 1960s.
The public schools were also plagued by criticism and disruption.
By the 1970s, however, there was less call for open classrooms
and curriculum reform, and more interest in meeting the needs
of the handicapped, those who could not speak English, or who
in other ways felt discriminated against. As the 1980s opened,
there were many answers but few solutions.
The Troubled Crusade is a fascinating overview of the dominant issues that have marked primary, secondary, and higher
education during the last four decades. Ravitch is most sensitive
to the nuances of each issue. Yet there are problems. This is the
story of court cases, national legislative battles, and books and
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191
articles. Children do not appear. Teachers and classrooms are
invisible. The success or failure of education cannot be measured
from such a lofty perch. Moreover, while discussing the background of many issues, such as the Red Scare, she has little discussion of the changing socioeconomic context. What about the
role of corporate business interests, technology, changing job markets? Her liberal orientation prevents her from seriously analyzing the sources and uses of power in American society. The dearth
of historical studies of American education since World War I1
makes this an important contribution, but it is only an initial
exploration.
Indiana University Northwest, Gary
Ronald D. Cohen
Review Notices
The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period. 1815-1840.By R. C. Buley. 2 volumes. (Indianapolis, 1950; reissued, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, in association with the Indiana Historical
Society, 1983. Pp. xiii, viii, 632, 686. Illustrations, notes, maps,
bibliographical essay, index. Set, $40.00.) “It was spring in Pittsburgh, wet and cold, but nevertheless, spring.” This first sentence
of R. C. Buley’s Old Northwest should trap the reader: the 1,200
pages of text that follow will easily hold all but the most anesthetized television devotee. The Old Northwest is narrative history at its best, written with sparkling detail, involvement, and
enthusiasm, written in clear prose of well-crafted sentences, paragraphs, and chapters, written to explain a subject of fundamental
significance and large human interest. Buley’s history of the territories and states of the Old Northwest is largely a history of
the people, of their migration and settlement in the new land,
their work and pleasure, sickness and health, family and friends,
schools and churches, travel and trade, politics and government.
It is based on laborious research in primary sources, particularly
newspapers and travel accounts, all of which Buley used to “read”
the culture without falling prey to the overly romantic notions
that often attach to pioneer life. The Old Northwest lacks some
of the quantitative, analytical, and theoretical apparatus that
marks the ‘hew” social history of the last two decades; yet, no
other book tells more about pioneer life west of the Appalachians.
The committee that awarded The Old Northwest a Pulitzer Prize
in 1950 made a wise and enduring choice. This reissue again
makes available a book that should be in every library and a book
that all interested in Indiana’s history must read. Those who do