The du Ponts, one of the most powerful families in American industry, actively fought policies that gave government more power over the economy. By focusing on one family's contribution to the economic and political debate between the world wars, Burk casts light on the changing fortunes of business and government in twentieth-century America.

Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln both considered small business the backbone of American democracy and free enterprise. In Beyond the Broker State, Jonathan Bean considers the impact of this ideology on American politics from the Great Depression to the creation of the Small Business Administration during the Eisenhower administration. Bean's analysis of public policy toward small business during this period challenges the long-accepted definition of politics as the interplay of organized interest groups, mediated by a 'broker-state' government. Specifically, he highlights the unorganized nature of the small business community and the ideological appeal that small business held for key members of Congress. Bean focuses on anti-chain-store legislation beginning in the 1930s and on the establishment of federal small business agencies in the 1940s and 1950s. According to Bean, Congress, inspired by the rhetoric of crisis, often misinterpreted or misrepresented the threat posed to small business from large corporations, and as a result, protective legislation sometimes worked against the interests it was meant to serve. Despite this misguided aid, argues Bean, small business has proved to be a remarkably resilient, if still unorganized, force.

By demonstrating the continuing importance of small business to American political ideology, Bean's study challenges corporate-liberal historians' notion that by the 1930s America had reached a consensus that corporate capitalism and big business were good for the country.

Scientists have a choice concerning what role they should play in political debates and policy formation, particularly in terms of how they present their research. This book is about understanding this choice, what considerations are important to think about when deciding, and the consequences of such choices for the individual scientist and the broader scientific enterprise. Rather than prescribing what course of action each scientist ought to take, the book aims to identify a range of options for individual scientists to consider in making their own judgments about how they would like to position themselves in relation to policy and politics. Using examples from a range of scientific controversies and thought-provoking analogies from other walks of life, The Honest Broker challenges us all - scientists, politicians and citizens - to think carefully about how best science can contribute to policy-making and a healthy democracy.