| Public administration literature lacks richness and context regarding the moral history of the founding of the field in the early 1900s. As a result, current calls for "recapturing the soul" of public administration have failed to stimulate a theory--or even a working understanding--of how to "rehydrate" the observed desiccation of public life and revivify the concept of the public interest. In correcting the historical record, this dissertation shows that the "soul" of public administration stemmed from the field's deep roots in the social gospel movement of the early 20... |
