author
Basil A. Bouroff
b. 1864
A Russian-born writer and Orthodox priest, he brought a sharp eye to questions of wealth and power in the United States at the turn of the twentieth century. His best-known work explores how concentrated riches were reshaping American life.
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About the author
Born in December 1864 near St. Petersburg, Bouroff was educated in Russia and later studied in Paris and London before coming to the United States. A contemporary account says he entered the University of Chicago in 1894 and then turned to sociological and political study.
He is best known as the author of The Impending Crisis: Conditions Resulting from the Concentration of Wealth in the United States (1900), an early critique of inequality and the growing concentration of economic power. The book helped mark him out as a thoughtful observer of the social strains of his era.
Some historical sources also identify him as Fr. Basil Bouroff of Chicago, linking his literary and intellectual work with service in the Orthodox community. Details of his later life are not easy to confirm, but his surviving work shows a strong interest in justice, public life, and the human cost of economic imbalance.