Richard Hofstadter

This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs.In The Paranoid Style in American Politics , acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence — and derail — the larger agendas of a political party. He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as “Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey” and “What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?, ” The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.

Anti-intellectualism in American Life was awarded the 1964 Pulitzer Prize in Non-Fiction. It is a book which throws light on many features of the American character. Its concern is not merely to portray the scorners of intellect in American life, but to say something about what the intellectual is, and can be, as a force in a democratic society.Hofstadter set out to trace the social movements that altered the role of intellect in American society from a virtue to a vice. In so doing, he explored questions regarding the purpose of education and whether the democratization of education altered that purpose and reshaped its form.In considering the historic tension between access to education and excellence in education, Hofstadter argued that both anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were consequences, in part, of the democratization of knowledge.Moreover, he saw these themes as historically embedded in America's national fabric, an outcome of her colonial European and evangelical Protestant heritage. Anti-intellectualism and utilitarianism were functions of American cultural heritage, not necessarily of democracy.

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author and preeminent historian comes a landmark in American political thought that examines the passion for progress and reform during 1890 to 1940. The Age of Reform searches out the moral and emotional motives of the reformers the myths and dreams in which they believed, and the realities with which they had to compromise.

The American Political Tradition is one of the most influential and widely read historical volumes of our time. First published in 1948, its elegance, passion, and iconoclastic erudition laid the groundwork for a totally new understanding of the American past. By writing a "kind of intellectual history of the assumptions behind American politics," Richard Hofstadter changed the way Americans understand the relationship between power and ideas in their national experience. Like only a handful of American historians before him—Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles A. Beard are examples—Hofstadter was able to articulate, in a single work, a historical vision that inspired and shaped an entire generation.

A Vintage Shorts Selection A timely reissue of acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter’s authoritative and unforgettable essay. First published in 1964 and no less relevant half a century later, The Paranoid Style in American Politics scrutinizes the conditions that gave rise to the extreme right of the 1950s and the 1960s, and presages the ascendancy of the Tea Party movement and, now, Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. Fringe groups can and do both influence and derail American politics, and Hofstadter remains indispensable reading for anyone who wants to understand why paranoia, a persistent psychic phenomenon with an outsize role in American public life, refuses to abate. An ebook short.

Social Darwinism in American Thought portrays the overall influence of Darwin on American social theory & the notable battle waged among thinkers over the implications of evolutionary theory for social thought & political action. Theorists such as Herbert Spencer & Wm Graham Sumner adopted the idea of the struggle for existence as justification for the evils as well as the benefits of laissez-faire modern industrial society. Others such as Wm James & John Dewey argued that human planning was needed to direct social development & improve upon the natural order. Hofstadter's study of the ramifications of Darwinism is a major analysis of the social philosophies that animated intellectual movements of the Gilded Age & the Progressive Era.IntroductionAuthor's NoteAuthor's IntroductionThe Coming of Darwinism The Vogue of Spencer William Graham Sumner: Social DarwinistLester Ward: Critic Evolution, Ethics & SocietyThe DissentersThe Current of Pragmatism Trends in Social Theory, 1890-1915Racism & ImperialismConclusionBibliographyNotesIndex

Demonstrates how the colonies developed into the first nation created under the influences of nationalism, modern capitalism and Protestantism.

This work traces the historical processes in thought by which American political leaders slowly edged away from their complete philosophical rejection of a party and hesitantly began to embrace a party system. In the author's words, "The emergence of legitimate party opposition and of a theory of politics that accepted it was something new in the history of the world; it required a bold new act of understanding on the part of its contemporaries and it still requires study on our part." Professor Hofstadter's analysis of the idea of party and the development of legitimate opposition offers fresh insights into the political crisis of 1797-1801, on the thought of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Martin Van Buren, and other leading figures, and on the beginnings of modern democratic politics.

Here for the first time in a single authoritative annotated edition are two masterworks by one of America’s greatest historians, Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970). In the Pulitzer Prize–winning Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1963) and in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1965), Hofstadter offered groundbreaking and still urgent analyses of deep undercurrents in American life: a stubborn, irrepressible opposition to rationality, expertise, and higher learning, and the destabilizing pull exercised by conspiratorial movements on the right and left.Anti-Intellectualism in American Life is at once a sweeping history of hostile attitudes toward ideas in the United States and, by Hofstadter’s own account, a deeply personal work of analysis, prompted by the “atmosphere of fervent malice and humorless imbecility” stirred up by McCarthyism. Dissecting the political and social uses of ignorance by demagogues, crusaders, self-help gurus, and even reformers assured of their own good intentions, Anti-Intellectualism uncovers a persistent, multifaceted feature of our national culture. It remains an essential resource for our time, fulfilling, in the words of Susan Jacoby, “the dream of every historian to produce a work that endures and provides the foundation for insights that may lie decades or centuries in the future.”“American political life,” Hofstadter writes at the beginning of The Paranoid Style, a book so powerful its title has entered the lexicon of modern political disorders, “has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds.” Examining the rhetoric and mindset of figures outside the political mainstream who tapped into the fears and conspiratorial thinking of large constituencies, the book reveals how unruly political movements—from Freemasonry to Populism to the John Birch Society and the rise of Barry Goldwater—have played an outsized role in our nation’s history.Intellectually omnivorous and an engaging and elegant stylist, Hofstadter wrote widely while working on these two books in the 1950s and 1960s. Included here are his most trenchant uncollected writings from the period: discussions of the Constitution’s framers, the personality and legacy of FDR, higher education and its discontents, the rise and fall of the antitrust movement, and the genius of Alexis de Tocqueville, among other subjects. Several essays reveal the profound shock of Goldwater’s nomination as the Republican nominee for president in 1964, which in Hofstadter’s view brought closer the troubling prospect that “the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible.”

Richard Hofstadter, the distinguished historian and twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, brilliantly assesses the ideas and contributions of the three major American interpretive historians of the twentieth Frederick Jackson Turner, Charles A. Beard and V.L. Parrington. These men, whose views of history were shaped in large part by the political battles of the Progressive era, provided the Progressive movement with a usable past and the American liberal mind with a historical tradition. The Progressive Historians is at once a critique of historical thought during this decisive period of American development and an account of how these three writers led American historians into the controversial political world of the twentieth century. Turner, in developing his idea that American democracy is the outcome of the experience of frontier expansion and the settlement of the West, introduced his fellow historians to a set of new concepts and methods, and in doing so doing re-drew the guidelines of American historiography. Beard insisted upon the elitist origins of the Constitution, crusaded for the economic interpretation of history, and ultimately staked his historical reputation on an isolationist view of recent American foreign policy. Parrington emphasized the moral and social functions of literature, and read the history of literature as a history of the national political mind. In recent years, the tide has run against the Progressive historians, as one specialist after another has taken issue with their interpretations. The movement of contemporary historical thought has led to a rediscovery of the complexity of the American past. Although he cannot share the faith of the Progressive historians in the sufficiency of American liberalism as a guide to the modern world, Richard Hofstadter believes we have much to learn about ourselves from a reconsideration of their insights.

Readings explore the events and effects of domestic violence throughout American history, based primarily on political, economic, and ethnic causes

Book by Hofstadter, Richard

American Higher A Documentary History (Two Volumes)

The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States by Richard Hofstadter.

A concise survey of U.S. History that offers exclusive coverage of the works of women, racial and ethnic groups, the working class, and impoverished people in our nation's history.

History, American History & Studies

The United The History of a Republic

Théories du complot et droite radicale en Amérique Loin de se résumer à des affrontements rationnels, la vie politique moderne est aussi en proie à des pathologies telles que la paranoïa et les théories du complot. Aux États-Unis, la hantise d’une conspiration contre le peuple américain possède une longue histoire. Témoin privilégié du maccarthysme et de l’émergence d’une droite radicale, l’historien Richard Hofstadter publie en 1964 un essai sur l’existence d’un « style paranoïaque » dans la politique américaine. Aujourd’hui, la résurgence d’une droite extrême aux États-Unis, particulièrement active sous la présidence d’Obama, offre une saisissante actualité au Style paranoïaque, récemment classé parmi les cent livres de non-fiction les plus importants du XXe siècle en langue anglaise (Time Magazine). Satire d’un discours extrémiste aux accents apocalyptiques, l’ouvrage offre une plongée au cœur de la psyché américaine contemporaine qui reste hantée par le complot, de l’assassinat de Kennedy au 11-Septembre en passant par les romans de Philip Roth, Thomas Pynchon ou Don DeLillo. Au-delà, Le Style paranoïaque nous éclaire sur les pathologies qui menacent les démocraties européennes contemporaines.

È stato scritto che gli Stati Uniti d'America, nati da un progetto politico e filosofico basato su ideali di libertà, democrazia e uguaglianza più che da una tradizione culturale o etnica comune, siano l'unica nazione ideologica al mondo, la "patria dei coraggiosi" e la "terra dei liberi", unica e "indivisibile sotto Dio", dove giustizia e libertà sono sempre a disposizione di tutti. Insieme a un mucchio di armi da fuoco e la possibilità di procurarsele e usarle indiscriminatamente. Questa raccolta di saggi di Richard Hofstadter, tra i massimi storici americani del Ventesimo secolo, raccoglie alcuni tra i suoi scritti più belli sul rapporto ambiguo che la patria di George Washington ha avuto fin dalle origini con pistole e fucili. Hofstadter indaga tale relazione con profondità e rigore, oltre che con la celebre scrittura raffinata e tagliente che gli valse il premio Pulitzer. Introdotto da un saggio in cui Emanuele Bevilacqua mostra come l'immaginario americano sia intriso della violenza delle armi da fuoco, gli scritti di Richard Hofstadter, di inquietante attualità, suonano ancora oggi come un monito che ci ricorda come in America il confine tra giustizia e caos sia spesso sottile come la canna di un fucile.

کتاب «روشنفکرستیزی در فرهنگ آمریکایی»، تألیف «ریچارد هافستادر»، یکی از برجسته ترین مورخان تاریخ معاصر آمریکا است. دو کتاب او موفق به دریافت جایزه پولیتزر شده اند که کتاب حاضر یکی از آنها است. دغدغه اصلی این کتاب، تحلیل و تفسیر وجه «روشنفکرستیزانه» فرهنگ و زندگی آمریکایی است و در این مسیر، به تحلیلی اجتماعی، فرهنگی، سیاسی و تاریخی از زندگی آمریکایی می پردازد. این کتاب، تصویر جامعی از فرهنگ و زندگی آمریکایی ارائه می کند که می تواند در درک جنبه های مختلف آن، بسیار مفید واقع شود. برای خوانندگانی که ایالات متحده آمریکا را بیشتر از طریق رسانه های جمعی و به خصوص سینما و یا تلویزیون می شناسند، مطالعه این کتاب می تواند تجربه و نگاهی متفاوت را ارائه کند