The Search for Order, 1877-1920

In The Search for Order, Robert Wiebe examines the changing American society between the end of Reconstruction and the end of World War I, and the struggle of the emerging middle class to compartmentalize and understand the changes around them. America experienced a significant amount of change between 1877 and 1920. New states entered the union, the frontier closed (or so was accepted at the time), a rural to urban shift produced large and disorganized cities, and the country emerged from isolation to become a world power. Depending mainly on secondary sources, Wiebe successfully argues that progressive reformers were not simply seeking a cleaner government, nor were they merely a group of displaced elite seeking to regain power, but a middle class attempting to establish new values. Robert Wiebe creates an interesting social and structural study of the United States during a dynamic period of growth and change. While the progressive period was not sustained into the 1920s, the lasting impact is in the programs and legislation that nurtured a sense of continuity and functionality, and provided an understandable structure that the middle class masses could understand and thrive in. The Search for Order is a very readable and in-depth study of an important time period, and although the structure and placement of the final two chapters are questionable, the book remains essential reading for one trying to understand this, and succeeding time periods.

This book provides an excellent, and now classic, synthesis of the cultural, intellectual, and political evolutions during this period of industrialization, urbanization, and economic change. Highly recommended to scholars and highly accessible to amateurs.

Historian Robert Wiebe examines the USA as it emerged from mostly rural society to an industrial giant during the years 1876-1920. The author shows that the USA grew from a series of largely independent, mostly Protestant, small-town communities at the end of Reconstruction, to a more interlocked, diverse, and urbanized society by the end of the First World War. As the USA grew into the world's foremost power, diffuse forces arose to both lead and to give the changing society a sense of order. Those forces included industrialization, professionalism, scientific management, progressive reform, bureaucracy, and urbanization. In short, most elements of modern society. Not that this melding process was perfect - much division, racism, and inequality remained - but the melding process was a powerful and successful one. We studied this book in a college history class and it was one of the best we read; not as stiffly written as some histories and very informative.

This book set the agenda for research in Gilded Age/Progressive Era studies for the current generation of American historians. It is a groundbreaking study which is not overly long and is very well written. It is one of the most widely used overview texts for the period in graduate history courses. If you only want to read one book on this period, make it this one.

Mr. Wiebe has done an excellent job of getting beneath all the confusion and conflict of America's history from the end of Reconstruction to the eve of the 1920's. To understand how many of the elements of our modern society came into being, and how and why the United States became a world power, one must go back to this period (1877-1920) to trace their origins. The book, while revealing many triumphs of our nation at this time, also reminds us of the tragedies which inevitably shaped our country's present course (ie World War I). Overall, it is a book of great value, for it sheds some much needed light on a very complex portion of our nation's history.