Small dealers and worthy men: the politics of scale from Bryan to Nader

这项研究调查了自1900年以来美国民主文化与经济规模之间的关系。一个沉浸在强烈个人主义的边疆神话中的民族，一个植根于被民主原则强有力地注入的文化中的民族，是如何适应现代工业经济的大规模和巨大复杂性的？这个问题对于理解20世纪的美国历史至关重要，但从目前的Vantage位置来看，在2008- 2009年金融危机之后，回答这个问题的必要性可能比以往任何时候都更加紧迫。在我们这个银行“太大而不能倒”的时代，迫切需要对我所称的“规模政治”有更深入的历史理解。本项目通过一系列以传记为基础、按时间顺序排列的案例研究，探讨了美国现代史上的规模问题。每一项研究都是以一个关键人物为基础的，他的政治运作方式都是建立在对集中经济权力的反感之上的。它开始于世纪之交的农业民粹主义者威廉·詹宁斯·布莱恩的全球旅行，结束于20世纪60年代消费者倡导者拉尔夫·纳德对通用汽车和其他汽车制造商的讨伐。有两件事把布莱恩和纳德联系在一起，也把他和本研究所依据的所有其他人物和更广泛的运动联系在一起。首先，他们都坚信，大规模的经济力量与美国民主不相容，特别是当这种力量集中在少数几家大公司手中时。第二，他们表明自己有能力在政治上参与，有时还能动员大批美国人民参加反对大企业规模和影响力的各种运动。这项研究的目的不是要确定个别政治家是成功还是失败，而是通过案例研究来更广泛地阐明20世纪的美国人是如何驾驭和接受规模政治的。该项目的主要成果将是一本书的手稿，阐述了一种绘制和理解美国历史上规模政治的新方法。这将直接用于学者，学生和其他渴望了解现代美国历史轮廓的人;更间接地，通过其对读者的影响，以及作为项目设计中内置的传播活动的结果，它将有助于认识现代美国政治文化的复杂性。从更广泛的意义上说，这里提出的研究可能可以被视为更广泛努力的一部分，几代美国历史学家都参与其中，以理解和解释美国强烈的民粹主义政治文化之间的尴尬关系，一方面，它明显怀疑集中权力，另一方面，它作为世界上最典型的资本主义国家，它最积极的拥护者和企业文化的输出者。这些都是历史学家需要探讨的重要问题，当然，它们也在我们当代的政治中产生共鸣，而不仅仅是在英国和美国。2012年10月，并将支付为期一周的访问国会图书馆，在那里的手稿档案工作将完成，并从教学救济，使研究人员可以把他的大部分精力投入到写作。此外，它还包括传播，使历史学家和其他学者了解研究结果，并影响活动，包括博客，在南约克郡地区的政治活动家规模的政治研讨会，以及一个或多个智囊团参与的公共活动-沟通，并创造机会与学术界以外的个人和团体互动。

The proposed research investigates the relationship between democratic culture and economic scale in the United States since 1900. How did a people steeped in the fiercely individualistic mythology of the frontier, and embedded in a culture powerfully infused by democratic principles, adjust to the large scale and great complexity of the modern industrial economy? This question is fundamental to any understanding of twentieth-century American history, but from the present vantage point-in the wake of the 2008-9 financial crisis-the need to answer it is, perhaps, more urgent than ever. In our age of 'too big to fail' banks there is a pressing need for a greater historical understanding of what I term 'the politics of scale'.This project addresses the problem of scale in modern US history through a series of biographically-anchored and chronologically-ordered case studies. Each of these studies is based on a key individual whose political modus operandi was premised upon antipathy to concentrated economic power. It begins with the turn-of-the-century global travels of agrarian populist William Jennings Bryan, and ends with consumer advocate Ralph Nader's crusades against General Motors and other auto manufacturers in the 1960s. Two things connect Bryan to Nader, and to all the other figures and wider movements on which this study is based. The first is that they shared a conviction that large-scale economic power is incompatible with American democracy, especially when that power is concentrated in the hands of a few big corporations. The second is that they showed themselves capable of politically engaging, and on occasion mobilising, large swathes of the American people in their various crusades against the size and influence of big business. The purpose of the research is not to establish whether individual politicians succeeded or failed, but through case studies to illuminate more widely how twentieth-century Americans navigated and came to terms with the politics of scale.The principal outcome of the project will be a book manuscript setting out a new way of mapping and understanding the politics of scale in American history. This will be of direct use to academics, students, and others eager to understand the contours of modern US history; more indirectly, through its influence on its readers and as a result of the dissemination activities built-in to the design of the project, it will contribute to an awareness of the complexity of modern American political culture. In a larger sense still, perhaps, the research proposed here can be seen as part of a broader effort, in which generations of US historians have been involved, to understand and explain the awkward relationship between America's fiercely populist political culture on the one hand, with its marked suspicion of concentrated power, and, on the other hand, its status as the world's most prototypically capitalistic nation, its most aggressive champion and exporter of corporate culture. These are important matters for historians to probe, but of course they also resonate in our contemporary politics, and not only in Britain and the United States.The research will take place from Feb.-Oct. 2012 and will pay for a one-week visit to the Library of Congress, where archival work for the manuscript will be completed, and for relief from teaching so that the researcher can devote the bulk of his efforts to writing. In addition it incorporates dissemination, to make historians and other academics aware of the research findings, and impact activities-including a blog, a workshop on the politics of scale for political activists in the South Yorkshire region, and a public event with the involvement of one or more think-tanks-to communicate, and create opportunities to interact with, individuals and groups outside academia.