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Uncle Sam Wants You: World War I and the Making of the Modern American Citizen (review)

and they generally ignore the sizable literature on educational expansion, which offers alternative explanations. More importantly, this interpretive frame fails to account for the abrupt oattening of educational growth after 1970, even while demand for skilled workers apparently surged ahead. The discussion of possible explanations for this trend is the book’s least compelling chapter from the standpoint of data analysis. Puzzling over the failure of today’s youth to take advantage of high returns to college education, Goldin and Katz look to research on resource inequality and the isolation of urban minority youth for answers. They suggest that certain past virtues may represent impediments to growth today, such as local control and funding of public schools. But the tone is tentative and the policy suggestions echo those favored by mainstream educational researchers: lower class sizes, job training programs, and expanded college aid for disadvantaged youth. Reasonable as this conclusion may be, it begs the question of factors prompting educational expansion in the past and their relevance to current problems. That said, there is much to recommend this book to a wide spectrum of readers. The basic argument is compelling, and historians, economists, and other scholars are sure to probe it further. The data sets that Goldin and Katz have compiled, as well as similar ones, ought to attract others who are interested in studying schooling and the labor force. The book offers a wealth of information, especially about the development of American education in the twentieth century. Time will tell if the overall argument holds up; in the shorter term, Goldin and Katz have certainly posed a wide range of questions to ponder, and some stimulating lessons about how to do so.