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The Paranoid Style in American Politics: And Other Essays F First Edition Used Edition
Author(s): Richard Hofstadter (Author)
- Publisher: Harvard University Press
- Publication Date: February 1, 1996
- Edition: F First Edition Used
- Language: English
- Print length: 346 pages
- ISBN-10: 0674654617
- ISBN-13: 9780674654617
Book Description
"The distinguishing thing about the paranoid style is not that its exponents see conspiracies or plots here and there in history, but that they regard a 'vast' or 'gigantic' conspiracy as the motive force in historical events...The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of this conspiracy in apocalyptic terms--he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. He is always manning the barricades of civilization."
--From the book
Editorial Reviews
Review
“The crank and his following have attracted a gifted historian in Richard Hofstadter...His account stands as the most balanced and authoritative analysis we have of a formidable and apparently permanent force in American politic.”
―C. Vann Woodward, New York Times Book Review“Here are a series of episodes in the American imagination--from anti-Masonry and Populism to McCarthyism and the Birch Society--each of them informed with a distinctive intelligence...Hofstadter's status theory helps us understand a political history that goes far beyond the issues of the fifties and sixties which it was invoked to explain.”
―New Republic“Professor Hofstadter...casts an incandescent light on the tactics of the Far Right which we crucially need to understand and to counter if we are to debate and formulate foreign policy equal to the needs of the times...Professor Hofstadter's essays...are calm, clear, dispassionate and devastating--a joy to read.”
―Harper's
