Richard Hofstadter

By Richard Hofstadter, Sean Wilentz (editor),

Book cover of Richard Hofstadter: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life the Paranoid Style in American Politics, Uncollected Essays 1956-1965

Book description

Together for the first time: two masterworks on the undercurrents of the American mind by one of our greatest historians

Richard Hofstadter's Anti-Intellectualism in American Life and The Paranoid Style in American Politics are two essential works that lay bare the worrying trends of irrationalism, demagoguery, destructive populism, and conspiratorial…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Richard Hofstadter as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Katy Hull

Author

Reading Hofstadter’s essays can be an eerie experience. Yes, he was writing in the early 1960s, and often about historical phenomena (although the recent antics and influence of Senator McCarthy were clearly at the front of his mind). But many of his observations about status anxiety and conspiracy theories feel spookily relevant today. With typical eloquence, Hofstadter wrote that McCarthy was buoyed by Americans who were revolting against the “tormenting manifestations of our modern predicament”; I saw something similar in fascist sympathizers in the interwar years. This edition contains both of Hofstadter’s famous essays on “anti-intellectualism” and “the paranoid style,”…

From Katy's list on the history of extremism in the United States.