Watch this episode of Smart Talk with Dr. Edward O’Donnell discussing his latest book Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age. In this social biography, O’Donnel offers modern account of the ideas of Henry George as seen through the lens of his extraordinary life.
America’s remarkable explosion of industrial output and national wealth at the end of the nineteenth century was matched by a troubling rise in poverty and worker unrest. At this critical juncture, Henry George identified the causes of the crisis and a remarkable solution. In this episode of Smart Talk, Andrew Mazzone discusses the new biography, Henry George and the Crisis of Inequality: Progress and Poverty in the Gilded Age, with its author Dr. Edward O’Donnell.
Dr. O’Donnell is a professional historian, author, and speaker. He is an Associate Professor of History at Holy Cross College in Worcester, MA. In addition to his biography of Henry George, O’Donnell’s other books include Visions of America: A History of the United States, Ship Ablaze: The Tragedy of the Steamboat General Slocum and 1001 Things Everyone Should Know About Irish American History.
They are joined by Dr. Alexandra (Alex) Lough, Henry George scholar and director of the Henry George Birthplace, Archive & Historical Research Center in Philadelphia. Watch this incisive, wide-ranging interview to:
• Understand George’s place in radically redefining the social and economic issues confronting workers in the Gilded Age
• See how he formulated the argument that citizenship involves an economic component as well as a political—and how his single-tax idea gained traction in the US and abroad
• Discover his emerging, contrary position recommending that the state had to become the arbiter between rights of workers and rights of corporations
• Learn why Henry George and his single tax concept became a sensation in Ireland
• Find out how of George’s plan work have actually worked for the US during the Populist era
• Imagine what Henry George could have accomplished had he been elected mayor of New York
• Investigate many other fascinating insights