Richard Hofstadter

Richard Hofstadter (1916–1970) was an American historian and public intellectual who examined U.S. political traditions, populism, and anti-intellectualism.

The American Political Tradition: Richard Hofstadter’s 1948 book interpreting major U.S. political leaders and traditions through shared limits on political debate. This book established his influential interpretation of continuity in American politics.
Columbia University: A private research university in New York City, founded in 1754 as King's College. Hofstadter studied and later taught at Columbia, where his career became centered.
John Higham: An American historian known for studies of nationalism, nativism, and immigration. Higham was a close colleague whose historical concerns overlapped with Hofstadter’s.
Eric Foner: An American historian known for scholarship on the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the history of freedom. Foner studied with Hofstadter and became a prominent historian of U.S. political change.
The Paranoid Style in American Politics: Richard Hofstadter’s 1964 essay describing conspiratorial political rhetoric as a recurring style in American public life. Its account of conspiracy-minded rhetoric became one of his most widely discussed arguments.
Great Depression: A worldwide economic crisis beginning in 1929, marked by mass unemployment and prolonged economic contraction. The crisis and New Deal era formed the political setting of Hofstadter’s early adulthood.
Charles A. Beard: An American historian who interpreted the U.S. Constitution and politics through economic interests and class conflict. Hofstadter’s first major book reconsidered Beard’s economic interpretation of the Founding.
Populism: A political outlook that casts society as a struggle between ordinary people and a powerful elite. Hofstadter’s account of agrarian populism became a major interpretation of the movement’s politics.
Anti-intellectualism in American Life: Richard Hofstadter’s 1963 book tracing American suspicion of intellectuals and expertise across politics, religion, and education. It develops his diagnosis of how American culture has distrusted intellectual authority.
New Deal: The domestic programs and reforms enacted under U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1939. Hofstadter’s early political commitments and historical questions emerged in the New Deal era.

Linked from 7 pages