Forgotten Man and Other Essays

William Graham Sumner was the most provocative intellectual of his era, and this final collection captures why his ideas still burn through American political discourse. The centerpiece, 'The Forgotten Man,' launched a phrase that has echoed for over a century, though its meaning has been endlessly contested. Sumner wrote as a fierce defender of laissez-faire capitalism, gold standard orthodoxy, and relentless anti-imperialism. He believed politics had been subverted by reformers who, under the guise of helping the poor, actually burdened the hardworking common man with the costs of every grand scheme. These essays sparkle with argument, wit, and absolutely no patience for sentimental economics. Sumner was wrong about many things, but he was never boring. For readers who want to understand the intellectual roots of American conservatism, the debates over welfare and intervention that still divide us, or simply want to encounter a mind that refused to soften its edges, this collection remains essential. It is a time capsule of Gilded Age anxieties that turned out to be remarkably prescient.