Wait, wait, wait. Before I comment on this book, I want to say first that patience is a virtue, and so is persistence. I stumbled on Bill Kauffman nine years ago, possibly via Front Porch Republic, and was immediately taken in by his charismatic contrariness and his beguiling command of archaic words and forgotten American literature. I immediately set my+ sights on reading Everything Bill Has Written, but was frustrated by not being able to find any copies of With Good Intentions? Reflections on the Myth of Progress for sale, or available via interlibrary loan. Disappointed but determined, I have for nine years kept an intermittent vigil, occasionally checking for used copies online that weren’t ridiculously priced — and finally, a couple of weeks ago, I saw one, and snatched it up immediately. (Current copies are selling for $55-$75. I purchased at $9. Ho, ho, ho.)

With Good Intentions is odd among Kauffman’s published works, appearing not as a monograph but as a collection of six essays of varying length linked by a theme, that of resistance to various ‘improvements’ of the 20th century, from women’s suffrage to the interstate system. Although progress tends to be a four-letter word in a Kauffman book, as he associates it with the destruction of cities to ‘save’ them and the ever-expanding growth of the beast on the Potomac, here not only does he include changes that he personally has no issue with, but he’s not the one arguing against them. Instead, Kauffman assays contemporary arguments and responses (for and against) and presents them to the reader with his own commentary — commentary which is more subdued than his usual style, and given that each piece ends with its own section of end-notes, the collection is more formal than one would expect from Batavia’s finest. To be sure, he’s still there: in quoting one person, he forewarns the reader that they use enough passive construction “to make Strunk turn White”. Kauffman is usually on the side of the opponents of change, especially of the interstate system and the standing military, but in the case of female suffrage he’s more fascinated by why some women opposed it: “Red Emma” Goldman, who no one would ever confuse with a traditionalist, despised it in part because she regarded the female sex as far more meddling and obnoxious, eager to interfere in the lives of others. (Readers who object should consider that pre-suffrage female activism was a huge part of the Temperance movement .) I was intrigued by Kauffman’s assertion in Ain’t my America that the standing military is enormously disruptive of the family, and thus anti-conservative, and here his commentary makes that case more forcefully. Presumably present readers would take most issue with the concept of child labor laws being opposed, but contemporaries make an excellent point that is not now sufficiently appreciated: this was when the State began asserting and assuming ownership of children, irrespective of the family’s interests or the parents desires — a road which has led to some places like the Inglorious People’s Republic of Californistan wanting to abduct children from parents who objected to their tweens wanting to chemically and surgically destroy their bodies under the influence of transmania. Good people often bad policy make, Kauffman remarks.

Fans of Kauffman will enjoy this on the off chance they can find it, but I wouldn’t use it to introduce Kauffman to anyone: he’s more restrained and formal here, and I only had to consult a dictionary once while reading