The Give and Take

of American Progress

Anne R. Pierce is a big-picture thinker with broad interests in history, politics, psychology, and philosophy. She is especially fascinated with periods of upheaval and transition in American life. She explores the ways in which Americans have created change and adapted to change, and how they have defined and responded to modernity. She is acutely aware of what we have lost as well as what we have gained in any particular transition period.

At the same time as Americans are moving toward something new and better, they are often giving up something vital and important. Pierce explores the way we have moved toward American potential and the way we have moved away from American potential and finds that we often do both at the same time. Progress, for Pierce, is both essential and inevitable—but she warns us to make sure that we are actually progressing and to beware of throwing away something valuable without replacing it with something more valuable.

History, for Pierce, is never just the story of the past. It is about whether we have honored, preserved and advanced the most valuable things in human life and human society, or abandoned and forgotten the most valuable things. The advance of American civilization has brought us unprecedented freedom and incredible opportunities for material, spiritual and intellectual rewards—but it has come at a price.

In her latest book, Ships Without A Shore: America’s Undernurtured Children, Pierce takes a hard look at the emerging data on the effects of day care and the hyper-structuring of children’s lives with endless activities. She analyzes our shifting moral-philosophical priorities and exposes the fractured condition of our families. Pierce submits that today’s childrearing trends may just spell the death of childhood—the crucial stage in human development.

Read an excerpt from her book.