Andrew Hartman. Education and the Cold War: The Battle for the American School. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. x + 251 pp. $74.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-230-60010-2. Reviewed by David Mitch Published on H-Childhood (July, 2009) Commissioned by Patrick J. Ryan (University of Western Ontario) Although world affairs are inherently distant movement started by John Dewey, and long under from the local activity of running a school, inter‐ attack by conservative educational thinkers, was national events can often heighten a sense of dealt a serious if not fatal setback by the further threat from abroad and a related sense of nation‐ mobilization of conservative interests due to the al inferiority, thus spurring domestic debates on impetus of Cold War politics. Hartman suggests the adequacy of education. A perceived poor that the progressive vision spawned by Dewey showing of British industrial exhibitors at the was too passive and insufficiently forward look‐ Crystal Palace International Exhibition of 1851 ing to effectively respond to the conservative chal‐ prompted concerns about the quality of British lenge. education. And perceived British technological de‐ The frst chapter surveys American theorizing ficiencies in the First World War prompted Correl‐ about education in the late nineteenth and early li Barnett’s subsequent examination of British ed‐ twentieth centuries. Dewey’s work is not surpris‐ ucation in his tellingly named The Audit of War: ingly front and center. However, Hartman also The Illusion and Reality of Britain as a Great Na‐ calls attention to the presence of conservative ap‐ tion (1986). proaches as evidenced in such documents as the In the case of the United States, the Sputnik National Education Association's Committee of episode has long been recognized as pointing to Ten Report (1893). He also notes how the progres‐ deficiencies of U.S. education. Andrew Hartman sive approach to education launched by Dewey undertakes to synthesize much of the previous and others split into what he terms order and jus‐ historiography regarding debates on education tice variants or what Milton Gaither, in his review throughout the twentieth century, viewing the of Hartman’s book on the U.S. Intellectual History early Cold War era as resulting in a culminating Blog (August 5, 2008), has alternatively termed the crisis. His thesis is that the progressive education social efficiency and social democracy wings. The H-Net Reviews second chapter on the Great Depression considers creasingly pervasive “Cold War-Mindedness.” the challenges that arose to progressive education Chapter 8 takes up the issue of race and the after‐ during this period and, in particular, to controver‐ math of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), argu‐ sies regarding the presence of Communists in ing that international dimensions were important America’s schools and universities, especially in because both the image of the United States would New York City teachers’ unions. It also notes the be weakened in developing countries with aware‐ emergence of conservative pedagogical approach‐ ness of the persistence of racial segregation in U.S. es, including those of Irving Babbitt, Albert Jay schools and a poorly educated black workforce Nock, and Paul Elmer More, which emphasized would lower economic efficiency. respect for authority in contrast with the progres‐ Although Hartman features the Cold War, he sive emphasis on child-centeredness. Chapter 3 seems to be arguing that it ultimately brought fur‐ examines the life adjustment movement that ther to the surface tensions long inherent in emerged after World War II in response to per‐ American education. And it is really the fnal ceptions of a growing juvenile delinquency prob‐ chapter of the book, chapter 9 on the aftermath of lem. Hartman concludes the chapter by noting Sputnik, in which the Cold War fgures front and controversy in existing historiography over the center, while the previous eight chapters trace extent to which the life adjustment movement various conflicts leading up to the Cold War ten‐ was a legacy of Dewey’s progressive education. sions. Many of the episodes in earlier chapters Chapter 4 continues discussion of the perceived preceded the end of World War II, thus leading to threat of Communist teachers in schools and ef‐ ambiguity over whether concerns about the forts to purge Communist Party members from threat of Communism predated the Cold War or teachers’ unions and the schools more generally. whether alternatively, the start of the Cold War It features a cameo appearance by Bella Dodd, should really be traced back to American con‐ turncoat informer to government investigating cerns about Communism dating at least as far as committees following a career as a Communist the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. school teacher. Chapter 5 turns to conservative Hartman’s subtitle is The Battle for the Ameri‐ critics of American education including such cul‐ can School. Yet what is striking about the conflicts tural critics as Richard Weaver and Russell Kirk that Hartman describes is the diversity of sources and the more libertarian perspective of Milton and stakeholders involved. The conservative op‐ Friedman’s advocacy of choice and educational ponents he describes were by no means monolith‐ vouchers. This chapter culminates with consider‐ ic. The one constant seems to be the legacy of ing the vigilantism Hartman perceives in the Dewey and his epigone progressive educators as Pasadena, California, School Board’s dismissal of wimps. The conservative opponents included not the superintendent, Willard Goslin, in part for his only rabid anti-Communists and Southern segre‐ alleged subversive tendencies. Chapter 6 consid‐ gationists but also elite liberal upholders of uni‐ ers three influential educators who sought to re‐ versal intellectual standards, such as Hutchins verse the tide of progressive liberalism, though and Hofstadter. Thus, it is not evident from Hart‐ who themselves could be considered more moder‐ man’s account that there was a set battle between ate liberals: Robert Maynard Hutchins, Arthur Be‐ two clearly defined opposing camps but rather it stor, and Richard Hofstadter. Chapter 7 takes up appears that there were ongoing skirmishes and efforts to promote world government and a world struggles between diverse factions. Indeed, one of vision in education as reflected in the work of the strengths of Hartman’s account is the way in Theodore Brameld. Hartman suggests that which it underscores this diversity. And I found it Brameld’s “World-Mindedness” lost out to an in‐ 2 H-Net Reviews informative to learn of fgures in these debates tal and that pockets of progressive influence con‐ previously unfamiliar to me, such as Bestor and tinued to persist. Hartman also suggested that the Brameld. remnants of progressive education that survived In his acknowledgments, Hartman explicitly easily morphed into the radicalism of the sixties. mentions his “unreconstructed ‘pinko-ism’” and He justifies his end point in the early 1960s on the the book at points strikes a provocative tone (p. grounds that this was when Cold War issues domi‐ ix). His introduction concludes by asserting that nated educational discussion compared with what “as Americans variously experienced the crisis of happened subsequently as the counterculture the Cold War as a crisis in education, both con‐ came to the fore. While these points are not im‐ sciously and subconsciously, the schools, in turn, plausible, the issue remains that Hartman’s ac‐ facilitated the construction of ‘cold warriors’ con‐ count ending in the mid-1960s really does not pro‐ ditioned to fear and loathe Communism, the Sovi‐ vide much direct insight into subsequent develop‐ et Union, and more nebulously, leftist ideas in ments, especially since it ends by pointing to the general” (p. 6). The concluding sentences of the triumph of conservative influences. Although book state: “In their avoidance of grand narra‐ Cold War issues surely featured prominently in tives, liberals and progressives were hailed by a educational debates throughout the long 1950s, more powerful structure. American liberalism were they quite as dominant as Hartman makes and progressive education could only serve one them out to be? One aspect to which he gives little master: U.S. imperialism” (p. 202). consideration is the role of religion in shaping ed‐ ucational discussion; Hartman acknowledges this Hartman’s overall account does not fully sup‐ in the U.S. Intellectual History Blog forum on his port his claim, as suggested by the book's title, book and recognizes, in particular, the role of that the Cold War was a decisive turning point in Catholic anti-Communism in shaping support for American education. Although the Cold War fea‐ Catholic schools independent of public schools. tures as the centerpiece of the book, as I have al‐ One also wonders about international issues oth‐ ready noted above, a good deal and perhaps even er than those involving direct conflict between the majority of the developments he describes Cold War powers. For example, there was grow‐ took place prior to the end of the Second World ing American interest in the developing world, War, many of them even prior to the Great De‐ such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America, not to pression. Moreover, if one places the end of the mention Western Europe. While the Cold War was Cold War at the demise of the Soviet Union in surely a major presence in these other interna‐ 1989, there is roughly a quarter of a century that tional aspects, they may well have had influences receives no treatment since the book ends its cov‐ of their own in shaping the teaching of social erage in the mid-1960s. And Gaither notes in his studies and anthropology in schools. review of Hartman’s book on the U.S. Intellectual History Blog that Hartman's account does not con‐ Hartman’s account of the twentieth century sider how the dour, buttoned-down 1950s segued prior to the end of the Second World War is into the radicalism and ferment of the 1960s.