“OUR NEED IS NOT FOR A WAY OUT BUT FOR A WAY FORWARD”: AMERICAN INDIVIDUALISM, SIGNED BY HERBERT HOOVER

HOOVER, Herbert. American Individualism. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, 1923. Small octavo, original blue cloth; pp. 72. $600.

Second edition of Herbert Hoover’s resounding endorsement of American individualism and its pioneering spirit, published while he was serving as President Warren Harding’s Secretary of Commerce, boldly signed in green ink by Hoover.

Issued while serving as President Harding's Secretary of Commerce, this important early work by President Herbert Hoover represented, to historian Frederick Jackson Turner, clear "evidence of a mind seeking to adapt pioneering traditions to the problems of an industrial and urban age" (Hawley, 3). To many since, Hoover's "ideas—service to the community and equality of opportunity—reached fruition in American Individualism (1922). Hoover opposed sharp class differences and counseled a Jeffersonian meritocracy… Hard work, intelligence, and character should determine a person's place in the world" (ANB). When first published in 1922, reviewers praised American Individualism as a work that ranks "among the few great formulations of American political theory" (New York Times). Without original dust jacket.

A few tiny marginal stains to interior, toning to spine. A signed near-fine copy.