author
Basil A. Bouroff
b. 1864
Remembered for a sharp, early critique of wealth concentration in the United States, this Russian-born writer moved between church life, university study, and public debate at the turn of the 20th century.
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About the author
Born near St. Petersburg in December 1864, Basil A. Bouroff later studied in Paris and London before coming to the United States. Contemporary accounts say he entered the University of Chicago in 1894 and turned to sociological and political study there.
Bouroff is best known today for The Impending Crisis: Conditions Resulting from the Concentration of Wealth in the United States (1900). In that book, he argued that extreme inequality and the growing power of trusts threatened American society, making him an interesting voice in the era's debates over industrial capitalism.
He also appears in church history as Fr. Basil Bouroff, one of the early Russian Orthodox priests in Chicago. That mix of religious work, academic study, and social criticism gives his writing an unusual perspective and helps explain why his work still stands out to readers interested in politics, reform, and American economic history.