Charles Abrams (1902-1970) stood at the center of the policies, problems, and politics surrounding urban planning, housing reform, and the public and private interests involved in the expansion of the American state. He uniquely combined in one person the often divergent roles of "public" and "policy" intellectual. As a "public intellectual," Abrams's voice reached the American public through the pages of The Nation, The New Leader, and The New York Times, with accessible explanations of civil rights legislation, mortgage financing, government policies, and urban renewal. As a...

Joseph Swidler (1907 1997) was one of the last New Dealers, part of a generation of talented professionals including Harry Hopkins, Harold Ickes, and Morris Cohen who devoted their energies to serving public, not private interests. In a career spanning six decades, he helped craft and administer the nation s energy policy while witnessing most of the signal events of the modern age: the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War, and America s emergence as a superpower. Swidler s memoir is filled with insights on this transformative period of U.S. history and includes anecdotes about key...

Experts examine competition from their own disciplinary perspectives. From economics to philosophy, biology to education, and psychology to politics, the origins and applications of this paradigm are placed in historical context, its mechanics are analyzed, and its costs and benefits are assessed.