Edward O’Donnell, associate professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross, gave a talk on his latest book “Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age” (Columbia University Press, 2015) for C-SPAN 3’s American History TV.
The book, which was recently published in June, is a biography on the 19th century American social activist and newspaper editor, Henry George. O’Donnell explores George’s fight against the increasing economic inequality of what is known as America’s Gilded Age and how the topic of economic inequality is still important today.
During his talk, O’Donnell likens George to the contemporary figure of French economist Thomas Piketty, author of the successful book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (Harvard University Press, 2014). O’Donnell draws connections between past and current economic concerns by citing Piketty, “Extreme inequality…can be harmful to growth because it reduces mobility and can lead to political capture [by the super-rich] of our democratic institution.” He also speaks on how there has been on-going discussion of whether or not the U.S. has entered into what is being called a Second Gilded Age, saying that history may not necessarily repeat itself but that there is “an echo, a rhyme, a reflection of that earlier period.”
The New York Times called “Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality” “timely and accessible” while the Kirkus Review said it was “A captivating portrait of the struggle between labor and capital during a formative period in the quest for workers’ rights.”
O’Donnell earned his Ph.D. in American history from Columbia University and is the author of several books, including “Visions of America: A History of the United States” (Pearson, 2009). O’Donnell has published op-eds for the New York Times and provided historical commentary for national outlets such as PBS, the Discovery Channel, the BBC, and National Public Radio. He runs the blog Edward T. O’Donnell: Historian at Large and can be found on Twitter @InThePastLane.
- Watch the segment on American History TV.
More information
- Read ‘Holy Cross Professor Publishes Book on American Social Activist who Warned of the Dangers of Economic Inequality’
- Read “Laboring Against Inequality”
This “Holy Cross in the news” item is by Emma Collins ’16
