description Richard Hofstadter Overview
Richard Hofstadter was an American historian of political and intellectual life who taught at Columbia University. His books examined anti-intellectualism, reform politics, social conflict, and the ways historical memory shapes political argument. The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays, published in 1965, analyzed conspiratorial political rhetoric, while The Age of Reform won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1956.
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What did Richard Hofstadter mean by consensus history?
Hofstadter emphasized recurring agreements and shared political assumptions among American elites, rather than treating every period mainly as a struggle between opposing classes. His 1948 book The American Political Tradition examined major figures through that critical, often skeptical lens.
What is Hofstadter's paranoid style in American politics?
It describes a recurring political style built around conspiracy fears, hidden enemies, and exaggerated threats to the national order. The phrase became especially associated with his essay later collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays.
Which Richard Hofstadter book won the Pulitzer Prize?
The Age of Reform won Hofstadter the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for History. The book examined Progressivism and the New Deal while questioning the motives and limits of reform movements.
Where did Richard Hofstadter teach?
Hofstadter spent much of his career at Columbia University, where he became one of the most influential American historians of the 20th century. His work connected political history with intellectual history and the study of mass movements.
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