Richard Hofstadter’s Followers (292)

Richard Hofstadter

Born

in Buffalo, New York, The United States

August 06, 1916

Died

October 24, 1970

Website

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98nov/hofstad...

Genre

History, Social Sciences, Nonfiction

Influences

Charles Beard, Merle Curti, Karl Marx, F. Scott Fitzgerald, H. L. Menc ...more

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Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual, historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. In the course of his career, Hofstadter became the “iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus” whom twenty-first century scholars continue consulting, because his intellectually engaging books and essays continue to illuminate contemporary history.

His most important works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an unsentimen Richard Hofstadter was an American public intellectual, historian and DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. In the course of his career, Hofstadter became the “iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus” whom twenty-first century scholars continue consulting, because his intellectually engaging books and essays continue to illuminate contemporary history.

His most important works are Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963), and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an unsentimental analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century; and in 1964 for the cultural history, Anti-intellectualism in American Life.

Richard Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916 to a German American Lutheran mother and a Polish Jewish father, who died when he was ten. He attended the City Honors School, then studied philosophy and history at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius Pratt. As he matured, he culturally identified himself primarily as a Jew, rather than as a Protestant Christian, a stance that eventually may have cost him professorships at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley, because of the institutional antisemitism of the 1940s.

As a man of his time, Richard Hofstadter was a Communist, and a member of the Young Communist League at university, and later progressed to Communist Party membership. In 1936, he entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University, where Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual, social, and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research. In 1938, he joined the Communist Party of the USA, yet realistically qualified his action: “I join without enthusiasm, but with a sense of obligation.... My fundamental reason for joining is that I don’t like capitalism and want to get rid of it. I am tired of talking.... The party is making a very profound contribution to the radicalization of the American people.... I prefer to go along with it now.” In late 1939, he ended the Communist stage of his life, because of the Soviet–Nazi alliance. He remained anti-capitalist: “I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it.”

In 1942, he earned his doctorate in history and in 1944 published his dissertation Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a pithy and commercially successful (200,000 copies) critique of late 19th century American capitalism and those who espoused its ruthless “dog-eat-dog” economic competition and justified themselves by invoking the doctrine of as Social Darwinism, identified with William Graham Sumner. Conservative critics, such as Irwin G. Wylie and Robert C. Bannister, however, disagree with this interpretation. ...more

Combine Editions
Richard Hofstadter’s books

Average rating: 4.05 · 9,958 ratings · 904 reviews · 85 distinct works • Similar authors

	Anti-Intellectualism in American Life 4.11 avg rating — 3,555 ratings — published 1963 — 47 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Age of Reform 3.91 avg rating — 1,954 ratings — published 1955 — 47 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It 4.04 avg rating — 1,859 ratings — published 1948 — 67 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays 4.16 avg rating — 1,435 ratings — published 1964 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Paranoid Style in American Politics: An Essay: from The Paranoid Style in American Politics (Kindle Single) 4.21 avg rating — 277 ratings — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Social Darwinism in American Thought 3.79 avg rating — 280 ratings — published 1955 — 41 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	America at 1750: A Social Portrait 3.67 avg rating — 147 ratings — published 1971 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Idea of a Party System: The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States 1780-1840 3.80 avg rating — 115 ratings — published 1969 — 10 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Richard Hofstadter: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life, The Paranoid Style in American Politics, Uncollected Essays 1956-1965 by Richard Hofstadter, Sean Wilentz (Editor) 4.50 avg rating — 54 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington 4.02 avg rating — 56 ratings — published 1968 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Richard Hofstadter…

Series by Richard Hofstadter

Great Issues in American History (3 books)
by

Richard Hofstadter (editor),

Beatrice K. Hofstadter (Editor)

3.95 avg rating — 129 ratings

Quotes by Richard Hofstadter (?)

“To those who suspect that intellect is a subversive force in society, it will not do to reply that intellect is really a safe, bland, and emollient thing. In a certain sense, the suspicious Tories and militant philistines are right: intellect is dangerous. Left free, there is nothing it will not reconsider, analyze, throw into question. "Let us admit the case of the conservative," John Dewey once wrote. "If we once start thinking no one can guarantee what will be the outcome, except that many objects, ends and institutions will be surely doomed. Every thinker puts some portion of an apparently stable world in peril, and no one can wholly predict what will emerge in its place." Further, there is no way of guaranteeing that an intellectual class will be discreet and restrained in the use of its influence; the only assurance that can be given to any community is that it will be far worse off if it denies the free uses of the power of intellect than if it permits them. To be sure, intellectuals, contrary to the fantasies of cultural vigilantes, are hardly ever subversive of a society as a whole. But intellect is always on the move against something: some oppression, fraud, illusion, dogma, or interest is constantly falling under the scrutiny of the intellectual class and becoming the object of exposure, indignation, or ridicule.”
― Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

tags: anti-intellectualism, criticism, intellectual, intellectualism, intellectuals, radicalism

27 likes

“It is a poor head that cannot find plausible reason for doing what the heart wants to do.”
― Richard Hofstadter, The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

19 likes

“Tocqueville saw that the life of constant action and decision which was entailed by the democratic and businesslike character of American life put a premium upon rough and ready habits of mind, quick decision, and the prompt seizure of opportunities - and that all this activity was not propitious for deliberation, elaboration, or precision in thought.”
― Richard Hofstadter, Anti-Intellectualism in American Life

tags: extroversion, introversion

16 likes

See all Richard Hofstadter's quotes »

Polls

Vote for the book you would like to read with the group for Nov/Dec 2019

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter, General Nonfiction, 1964

14 votes, 25.9%

Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion by Edward J. Larson, History, 1998

7 votes, 13.0%

"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power, General Nonfiction, 2003

7 votes, 13.0%

The Haunted Land: Facing Europe's Ghosts After Communism by Tina Rosenberg, General Nonfiction, 1996

6 votes, 11.1%

Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation by Dan Fagin, General Nonfiction, 2014

6 votes, 11.1%

Growing Up by Russell Baker, Autobiography, 1983

5 votes, 9.3%

William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic by Alan Taylor, History 1996

5 votes, 9.3%

Mary Chesnut's Civil War by C. Vann Woodward, History, 1982

4 votes, 7.4%

54 total votes

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