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''The Goose-step: A Study of American Education'' is a book, published in 1923, by the American novelist and muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair. It is an investigation into the consequences of plutocratic capitalist control of American colleges and universities. Sinclair writes, “Our educational system is not a public service, but an instrument of special privilege; its purpose is not to further the welfare of mankind, but merely to keep America capitalist." (p. 18) The book is one of the “Dead Hand” series: six books Sinclair wrote on American institutions. The series also includes ''The Profits of Religion'', ''The Brass Check'' (journalism), ''The Goslings'' (elementary and high school education), ''Mammonart'' (great literature, art and music) and ''Money Writes!'' (literature). The term “Dead Hand” criticizes Adam Smith’s concept that allowing an "invisible hand" of capitalist greed to shape economic relations provides the best result for society as a whole. == Context == Published in 1923, ''The Goose-step'' was written during the post–World War I Red Scare. It was a time of great political awareness and activism on both left and right in the United States. On the left, there was widespread interest in Socialism and Communism, especially in the results of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Populist ideas were still alive, and Anarchism was in the news, with the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti arraigned in 1920 for a robbery and murder. On the right, the anti-German jingoism and florid patriotism of the war years had stirred up passions against pacifism and ‘foreign’ ideas such as Socialism and Communism. The Palmer raids against suspected radicals occurred in 1919, and superpatriotic organizations like the business-sponsored, anti-union Better America Foundation worked to shape public opinion. Critiques of higher education had recently appeared, such as Thorstein Veblen’s 1918 book ''(The Higher Learning in America ).'' Sinclair spent a year traveling the country for the book and interviewed over a thousand persons. (Like American filmmaker Michael Moore, Sinclair makes the rejection he received part of the story.) Sinclair also used primary sources like letters, and secondary sources like student newspapers. Sinclair had studied at Columbia University in New York City, and the book’s longest section attacks Columbia and its president, Nicholas Murray Butler. Sinclair originally intended to also critique elementary and high schools, but because of length he saved that material for another book, published in 1924 as ''The Goslings.'' 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Goose-Step (book)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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