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EH.NET BOOK REVIEW 
 
Published by EH.NET  (September 1997) 
 
Ballard C. Campbell, _The Growth of American Government: Governance from 
the Cleveland Era to the Present_. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University 
Press, 1995.  x + 289 pp.  $35.00 (cloth), ISBN: 0-253-32871-3. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Rebecca Menes, Department of Political Science, 
UCLA. 
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Ballard Campbell has written a solid and yet fundamentally disappointing 
history of American government since 1887. We need a critical synthesis of 
our current understanding of the history of American government during the 
last hundred years. The size and role of the government, traditionally a 
source of controversy in the U.S., has been brought to the forefront of 
debate both by developments within our own polity and by the divergent 
fortunes of the different former socialist economies. The difficulties 
faced by former communist countries as they build the institutions of a 
free society have brought a new appreciation for the historical process 
that created a government able to oversee the capitalist economy and the 
distribution of both opportunity and wealth within the market framework. 
 
In the U.S. all sides in the numerous partisan controversies over the role 
of government in economic, social, and private life turn to the "lessons" 
of the history of our government, including the phenomenal expansion of 
government in the twentieth century. The popular interest in government is 
reflected in recent interest among economists and political scientists on 
the history of government and the historical role of government in the U.S. 
However the field remains fragmented, cut both by divisions between 
ideologies and by divisions between disciplines. A volume that provided a 
critical and synthetic introduction to the current understanding of and 
debates in the history of American government in the twentieth century 
would be a book few economists, historians, or political scientists could 
afford to ignore. Ballard Campbell's book, although a solid effort, is not 
the book we need. 
 
The _Growth of American Government_ leaves out or touches only lightly on 
many of the most interesting aspects of the growth of government, 
especially from the point of view of an economist. The discussion of the 
rise of Federal regulation is cursory, as is the discussion of the role of 
the courts. The discussion of macro-economic policy, fiscal or monetary, is 
non-existent. The discussion of local government is limited, although this 
is perhaps due more to the state of the literature on local government than 
it is to the desires of the author. There are also few international 
comparisons between growth of U.S. government and government in other 
industrialized nations. Nevertheless, the primary focus of the work- the 
growth of Federal spending, the concomitant changes in taxation, and the 
rise of the Federal government as defender of the civil rights of citizens 
against the depredations of State governments and fellow citizens- provides 
more than enough material for a book. 
 
Unfortunately, Campbell saddles himself with two stylistic constraints that 
undermine the presentation of the subjects he does address. First, he 
adopts an "omniscient" voice. Second, he eschews any statement that might 
smack of partisanship. Copious footnotes and a thorough, annotated 
bibliography (the best part of the book) make it clear that the author is 
aware of debates and controversies in the historical literature, but the 
text is written as if all facts and conclusions were indisputable. To avoid 
taking sides, the author limits himself to statements that are basically 
indisputable. The result is a narrative description of the gradual increase 
in government responsibility, with no satisfactory discussion of either 
causes or consequences of the changes. 
 
The rhetorical choices make it hard for the book to draw on more than the 
historical literature. A productive discussion of the political science and 
economic history literature on American government depends on the ability 
to present hypotheses and propose empirical tests. Neither are possible 
within the rhetorical constraints Campbell has imposed on himself. As a 
result, although the author promises to present "The course and causes of 
growth" (chapter 2,) his explications are limited to presenting a list of 
the less controversial potential causes for each change in American 
government. The usual suspects are collected, not evaluated. 
 
But in the end it is the decision to avoid any suggestion of partiality 
that fatally undermines the book. There would be a place for a readable 
history of the what and when of the growth of government, even if it were 
necessary to go elsewhere for the causes. Campbell's book does cover a lot 
of information. However, by avoiding discussion of the consequences of the 
growth of government, good or bad, Campbell has written a boring book. When 
an author, in his desire to avoid partiality, not only avoids taking sides 
but also refuses to acknowledge that differences of opinion are possible, 
the result is a text drained of any enthusiasm for its subject. To argue 
that the growth of government mattered means, at least temporarily, taking 
a side or openly acknowledging the depth of the controversies inherent in 
the topic. Ignoring the chasms in the field produces a text as flat and 
banal as a high school civics course. The reader is left, at the end of the 
volume, with the odd sense that government did not and does not matter. 
 
Rebecca Menes 
Department of Political Science 
University of California- Los Angeles 
 
Rebecca Menes is the Charles Grove Haines Visiting Assistant Professor at 
the UCLA Department of Political Science. Her area of studies are local 
government and machine politics in American cities during the Progressive 
Era. 
 
(Ballard C. Campbell is a Professor of History at Northeastern University, 
author of _Representative Democracy: Public Policy and Midwestern 
Legislatures in the Late Nineteenth Century_ and Associate Editor of 
_American National Biography_.) 
 
Copyright (c) 1997 by EH.Net and H-Net, all rights reserved.  This work  
may be copied for non-profit educational use if proper credit is given to  
the author and the list.  For other permission, please contact  
[log in to unmask] (Robert Whaples, Book Review Editor, EH.Net.  
Telephone: 910-758-4916. Fax: 910-758-6028.) 
 
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