American Traits

[I]f the diffusion of American wealth is accentuated, can it be denied that the extremes are greater here than anywhere else,-that the army of the unemployed is swelling while the billion-dollar trusts are formed, that the richest men are richer than any European, while the slums of New York show a misery that is unknown in Berlin?
-from "American Democracy"

As a psychologist and an innovator of experimental psychology, Hugo Mnsterberg was a powerful influence on thinking in both the medical and social arenas at the turn of the 20th century, developing practical applications of psychology to industry, medicine, education, the arts, and criminal investigation.

Here, though, in this 1901 work, Mnsterberg turns his scientific eye on American culture at large, offering the perspective of an educated and observant immigrant on the New World experience in the Gilded Age.

From the delusions of American democracy to the condition of women, Mnsterberg's commentary tells us much not just about the United States in the pre-World War I period, but also about the mind of a man whose work continues to impact today's philosophy of the mind and how it shapes human behavior.

Also available from Cosimo Classics: Mnsterberg's Psychology and Social Sanity, The Eternal Life, The War and America, and Psychotherapy

OF INTEREST TO: readers of American history, students of cultural psychology


German-American psychologist and philosopher HUGO MNSTERBERG (1863-1916) was professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1892 until his death. He was elected president of the American Psychological Association in 1898.