Dawley offers a historical perspective on the Progressive Movement during World War I and its aftermath. It includes an analysis of the internal divisions among Progressives on issues such as imperialism and how best to spread American ideals. Dawley simultaneously explores reformist efforts at home and abroad.

This work was extremely popular in its own time, as the Progressive Era neared its final years before a post-WWI implosion. It's a biased account from a Progressive author, but nonetheless a useful one for gaining some perspective on the internal and external conflicts and controversies that surrounded the movement.

This book, the first of several that Chicago Tribune reporter Lloyd would write, had a significant impact on labor relations and on Lloyd's own journalistic profession. It analyzed the history of the Standard Oil Company in order to mount an attack upon all monopolies and industrialization itself.

Moody, a financial writer, worked in a Wall Street brokerage house for several years before writing this treatise on the rapid increase in business mergers during the Gilded Age.

The first book written by Riis, a Danish-American photojournalist and social reformer, this work sought to alert middle and upper-class readers to the deplorable living conditions in the slums of working-class neighborhoods.

This San Francisco-based author compiled a series of his explosive McClure's magazine articles on corrupt urban politicians in this book. Steffens, who later turned to socialism as the antidote to the nation's ills, was a prominent muckraking journalist.