Louis Hartz covered the same thesis much better 55 years ago.
The Hartzian thesis, which the authors of the book have promoted, has been heavily criticized by many for failing to pass historical muster.
The notion that America historically lacked institutions of feudalism is quite false. In many cases, they were abolished much later in the United States than in Britain, for example. Liberals and socialists alike allied to combat the remnants of feudalism in the American states during the Progressive era, in sharp contrast to Marks et al.'s simplistic thesis(1)
A lot better works have criticized the notion that America has always had a hegemonic liberal tradition (central to Hartz's thesis, and similarly to Lipset and Marks' book). American workers, simply put, were far from born conservative. In many cases, American left parties developed faster than equivalent ones in Britain and Germany.(2)
American poltical parties were able to better co-opt the labor movement than European establishment parties, often due to American sectionalism relating to the post-civil war political economy(3)
It's a complicated question, but I think the best works have looked at the unique interplay between mass politics and the state in America, most notably Robin Archer's fantastic
Why is Their No Labor Party in the United States (Princeton University Press, 2008), particularly the role political repression played in the US. American socialists faced a much harsher climate of political repression by national and state governments, espescially after the Socialist Party of America mobilized opposition to American entry in the First World War.
1. For example, Rogers M. Smiths review of the tradition of American exceptionalism, “Beyond Tocqueville, Myrdal and Hartz: The Multiple Traditions in America.”
American Political Science Review Vol. 87, No. 3 (Sep., 1993), pp. 549-566
.
2. McNaught, Kenneth. “Comment on The Liberal Tradition.” In
Failure of a Dream? Essays in the History of American Socialism, edited by John H.M. Lasset and Seymour Artin Lipset, 345-356. Berkley: University of California Press, 1984.
3. See Bensel, Richard Franklin.
Sectionalism and American Political Development 1880-1980. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984.
