The Promise of American Life is a book by Herbert Croly, an intellectual leader and editor, political philosopher and cofounder of the magazine, called The New Republic in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century.In this book he proposes new ways for the development of the already formed American society. According to Croly, traditional American confidence in personal freedom led to morally and socially undesirable distribution of wealth. He claimed that national government would be more powerful, than it was actually - a stronghold of greediness, corruption, and unresisted power, if it opted for greater concentration of power in the federal government in order to guarantee democracy, "new nationalism". Besides, Croly highly valued the person, motivated by the civil virtue and "functional individualism", and encouraged everyone to achieve this goal.