Drift and Mastery

Drift and Mastery is a searching diagnosis of modern America at a moment when old authorities are fading and new forces are still taking shape. Walter Lippmann traces the unrest of democracy, business, labor, property, consumption, reform, and public morality, arguing that citizens can no longer rely on slogans, inherited assumptions, or nostalgic dreams of a simpler past. The real task is to understand a changing world well enough to govern it. Across its chapters, the book explores "drift" as a modern condition: rebellion mixed with fatalism, freedom shadowed by confusion, and social life pulled by fashion, gossip, media, and unstable public opinion. Lippmann examines muckraking, graft, industrial power, village democracy, women's emancipation, fear, poverty, science, schools, and religion to show that liberty alone is not enough. Democracy, he insists, must become a disciplined practice of collective intelligence, honest generalization, and practical reform if it is to turn modern chaos into purposeful power. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.