To understand why the U.S. government works, and works relatively well, a bridge of understanding is needed between the principles of the founding fathers and the massive bureaucratic machine that is the modern United States. Richard Stillman's "Creating the American State: the Moral Reformers and the Modern Administrative World They Made" provides such a bridge. Stillman builds a cogent case that seven "founders" of the modern administrative state shared and applied common Protestant values of work, duty, and idealism. These founders -- little known public officials -- essentially provided functional amendments to the theoretical skeleton of the Constitution. George William Curtis influences the adoption of a merit system over patronage. Charles Francis Adams (of the other Adams family) pioneers the sunshine commission. Jane Addams parlays her Protestant beliefs into social reforms that are ultimately rewarded with the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. And, Frederick W. Taylor pioneers a system of scientific management that is still sending shock waves through government and industry. (Think TQM and Deming.) Combining biography and political science, Professor Stillwell provides a fascinating portrait of the emerging U.S. administrative state. Taken as a whole, his book provides an insight into why a complex bureaucracy is a necessary component of a successful modern society. This review provided by Dr. R. Kirk Jonas, who uses "Creating the American State" in his University of Richmond class "Reinventing Government, Again." Comments to rkjona@aol.com

If you share in Dwight Waldo's excitement for the field of public administration and government, then you will certainly enjoy this account of his career and the concepts that now form the foundation of modern public administration.

Ideologically this book extols Wilsonian-Weberian bureaucracy. It has an adulation for statecraft science and public administration and none for the Constitution and the Rule of Law. The cases make for interesting discussion in a Public Administration Survey class, but the questions are quite leading. (Hence, if you have a liberal professor, you best give the right... I mean 'left' answer.) The Constitutionality of any laws and policies are irrelavent to the authors. The problem with Public Administrators is that they are basically taught to be pragmatic- bend the law a little and improvise. For a conservative or libertarian this book could be tempered with 'The Tyranny of Good Intentions' and 'Lost Rights.'