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Americas remarkable explosion of industrial output and national wealth at the end of the nineteenth century was matched by a troubling rise in poverty and worker unrest. As politicians and intellectuals fought over the causes of this crisis, Henry George 1839-1897 published a radical critique of laissez-faire capitalism and its threat to the nations republican traditions. Progress and Poverty 1879, which became a surprise best-seller, offered a provocative solution for preserving these traditions while preventing the amassing of wealth in the hands of the few a single tax on land values. Georges writings and years of social activism almost won him the mayors seat in New York City in 1886. Though he lost the election, his ideas proved instrumental to shaping a popular progressivism that remains essential to tackling inequality today.