The Gilded Age (1873) by Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner

The subtitle of The Gilded Age says it all: A Tale of Today.  When Mark Twain and his neighbor Charles Dudley Warner penned their book, that "today" was 1873, and the country was recovering from the Civil War, "reconstructing" the South, and stretching ever westward with its railroads. The book was so successful at portraying the country, that it gave name to an era of American history.

It was a era of endless ambition, often blind; an unprecedented accumulation and flaunting of wealth by an oligarchy; institutionalized poverty, viewed indifferently; and corporate greed on a monumental scale, greased by compliant and highly creative governmental corruption. In other words, it was much like today, 2018.

While the book includes unmistakable political commentary, it’s bigger picture is a social commentary on a nation of people looking at unlimited opportunity, yet frequently forsaking it with a mad quest for immediate gratification, and a single-minded worship of the dollar, and little else.

The key storyline of book involves the ownership by the Hawkins family of a large tract of land in eastern Tennessee.  Unable to immediately make much of the land, they, like others in the post war period, follow the path of westward expansion to Missouri, then the gateway to the frontier. There they attempt one get-rich scheme after another, and fail at them all.  Importantly however, the elder Hawkins maintains ownership of the Tennessee land, and reminds his children that it would one day make them rich.

“Cashing in” on that land is the main plot of the book, and it goes like this (an over-simplification). The U.S. Senator from Missouri, working with the Hawkins family, devises a plan to create an economic development tract on the Tennessee property to help recently emancipated black folk.  This benevolent goal however is never anything more than a public relations cover for a scheme which in its fine print enriches everyone but the poor black folk. 

Looking at this 135 years later, what you have is a how-to manual for the recent so-called reform Tax Cut and Jobs Act – a nice sounding name for a huge tax break for corporations and the already wealthy, with table scraps for the middle class and further service cuts for the poor.  In the book, just like two weeks ago, the bill is even legislatively advanced in the middle of the night, with no one having a chance to even read the bill they were voting on.  And, as much as I’d like to pin this strategy on the current administration (on loan from Goldman Sachs), this legislative blueprint has been used multiple times in U.S. history – because “we the people” haven’t stopped it.

Recommendation:  Yes.  The book is vintage Mark Twain and completely readable.