ABSTRACT
Thorstein B. Veblen was born to a season of revolt. All through the latter half of the nineteenth century western civilization had threatened to crack and come apart under the stress of a burgeoning industrial society. Veblen’s mature work came to fruition at a time when America seemed in utter turmoil. The farmer discovered at the turn of the century that he had to enter politics to defend himself against the rapacity of the monopolies. In 1870, some 80 per cent of the population was rural; by the turn of the century the movement had gone in the other direction, until, by the end of the third decade, virtually the whole span of Veblen’s career, almost 60 per cent were gathered in cities. Thorstein Veblen was an alien in this world. The son of an immigrant Norwegian farmer, he was consumed by a life-long struggle to attain a sense of complete freedom.
