Drift and Mastery
Published on 13. November 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
216 pages
978-1-967190-08-9 (ISBN)
Description
Celebrating a decade of Columbia Global Reports, the Forerunners series revives groundbreaking works of investigative journalism and incisive analysis published a century before CGR's founding. These texts, once forgotten or underexplored, reflect CGR's core mission: fearless reporting, global perspective, and intellectual rigor. Each selection remains strikingly relevant today, offering historical insights that challenge contemporary perspectives and reaffirm the power of journalism to shape the world.
In Drift and Mastery, a twenty-five-year-old Walter Lippmann surveyed what he saw as the chaos of newly industrial America and dreamed of a bold new future. Published in 1914, at the height of the Progressive Era, this audacious manifesto diagnosed the spiritual and political confusion of a nation grappling with unbridled capitalism, mass immigration, and the collapse of old certainties. Rejecting the sentimental populism of William Jennings Bryan and the moralizing of Woodrow Wilson, Lippmann embraced Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism," envisioning a society led not by profiteers but by trained experts-scientists, managers, and professionals working for the common good.
More than a period piece, Drift and Mastery is striking in its embrace of centralized knowledge, its optimism about reform, and its blind spots about power. Nicholas Lemann's incisive introduction places the book alongside the contemporary work of thinkers like John Dewey and W. E. B. Du Bois while highlighting its relevance in an age of populist backlash and elite mistrust. Lippmann's flawed but fearless vision challenges us to rethink democratic leadership today.
The complete Forerunners series:
Campaigns of Curiosity, by Elizabeth L. Banks; with an introduction by Brooke Kroeger
Cuba in War Time, by Richard Harding Davis; with an introduction by Peter Maas
Race Adjustment, by Kelly Miller; with an introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway
Drift and Mastery, by Walter Lippmann; with an introduction by Nicholas Lemann
In Drift and Mastery, a twenty-five-year-old Walter Lippmann surveyed what he saw as the chaos of newly industrial America and dreamed of a bold new future. Published in 1914, at the height of the Progressive Era, this audacious manifesto diagnosed the spiritual and political confusion of a nation grappling with unbridled capitalism, mass immigration, and the collapse of old certainties. Rejecting the sentimental populism of William Jennings Bryan and the moralizing of Woodrow Wilson, Lippmann embraced Theodore Roosevelt's "New Nationalism," envisioning a society led not by profiteers but by trained experts-scientists, managers, and professionals working for the common good.
More than a period piece, Drift and Mastery is striking in its embrace of centralized knowledge, its optimism about reform, and its blind spots about power. Nicholas Lemann's incisive introduction places the book alongside the contemporary work of thinkers like John Dewey and W. E. B. Du Bois while highlighting its relevance in an age of populist backlash and elite mistrust. Lippmann's flawed but fearless vision challenges us to rethink democratic leadership today.
The complete Forerunners series:
Campaigns of Curiosity, by Elizabeth L. Banks; with an introduction by Brooke Kroeger
Cuba in War Time, by Richard Harding Davis; with an introduction by Peter Maas
Race Adjustment, by Kelly Miller; with an introduction by Jonathan Scott Holloway
Drift and Mastery, by Walter Lippmann; with an introduction by Nicholas Lemann
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
NY
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 127 mm
Width: 191 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
234 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-967190-08-9 (9781967190089)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Walter Lippmann (1889-1974) was one of the most influential American journalists and political commentators of the twentieth century. A founding editor of The New Republic and later a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for the New York Herald Tribune, he shaped public debate on democracy, propaganda, and public opinion. His major works include Drift and Mastery, Public Opinion, and The Phantom Public. Nicholas Lemann is the director of Columbia Global Reports, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and dean emeritus of Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, where he is the Joseph Pulitzer II and Edith Pulitzer Moore Professor of Journalism. He is the author of several acclaimed books, including Transaction Man, Redemption, The Big Test, and The Promised Land.