These essays, written just after WWII by a German economist who arrived in the United States in 1940, provide an unexpectedly helpful contribution to an understanding of our present moment, writ large. Today, when the United States is coming to terms with its destiny and its true (as distinct from geopolitical) place in current and world history, seems a propitious time to re-publish these essays, which first saw the light of day in the mid-twentieth century.

Bernhard Behrens offers two main contributions: the first is to look at the United States through the eyes of a newly arrived outsider, with all the clarity that can entail. The second is his perspective on history, the perspective that Rudolf Steiner affords us, but not only him; Goethe also. For Goethe, too, had his eyes on the latencies of the US.

Updated from the 1950s, the view of the challenges and possibilities that Bernhard Behrens provides remain as perceptive and insightful now as when written, especially in regard to economic life and the nature and future of democracy - both topics that are at risk of coming loose from their moorings in humanity's wider story.

Lastly, the editors of these essays are all professionals in finance and well-versed in Rudolf Steiner's work. Moreover, although all are members of the Economics Conference of the Goetheanum - a worldwide research community in associative economics - they are not all Americans. One is Swiss and one is British. Combined with its mix of realism and idealism, this gives to their joint appraisal a welcome international eclecticism.