Books.org participates in affiliate programs including Bookshop.org and the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. We may earn a commission from qualifying purchases made through links on this page, at no additional cost to you.
Overview
Richard Hofstadter (1916-70) was America's most distinguished historian of the twentieth century. The author of several groundbreaking books, including The American Political Tradition, he was a vigorous champion of the liberal politics that emerged from the New Deal. In addition, his opposition to the extreme politics of postwar America marked him as one of the nation's most important and prolific public intellectuals.In this masterly biography, David Brown explores Hofstadter's life within the context of the rise and fall of American liberalism. A fierce advocate of academic freedom, racial justice, and political pluralism, Hofstadter charted, in his works, the changing nature of American society from a provincial Protestant foundation to one based on the values of an urban and multiethnic nation. According to Brown, Hofstadter presciently saw in rural America's hostility to this cosmopolitanism signs of an anti-intellectualism that he believed was dangerously endemic in a mass democracy. Whether one agrees with Hofstadter's critics or his fans, the importance of this seminal thinker cannot be denied.
About the Author:
David S. Brown is associate professor of history at Elizabethtown College
Synopsis
Richard Hofstadter (1916-70) was America’s most distinguished historian of the twentieth century. The author of several groundbreaking books, including The American Political Tradition, he was a vigorous champion of the liberal politics that emerged from the New Deal. During his nearly thirty-year career, Hofstadter fought public campaigns against liberalism’s most dynamic opponents, from McCarthy in the 1950s to Barry Goldwater and the Sun Belt conservatives in the 1960s. His opposition to the extreme politics of postwar America marked him as one of the nation’s most important and prolific public intellectuals.
In this masterly biography, David Brown explores Hofstadter’s life within the context of the rise and fall of American liberalism. A fierce advocate of academic freedom, racial justice, and political pluralism, Hofstadter charted in his works the changing nature of American society from a provincial Protestant foundation to one based on the values of an urban and multiethnic nation. According to Brown, Hofstadter presciently saw in rural America’s hostility to this cosmopolitanism signs of an anti-intellectualism that he believed was dangerously endemic in a mass democracy.
By the end of a life cut short by leukemia, Hofstadter had won two Pulitzer Prizes and his books had attracted international attention. Yet the Vietnam years, as Brown shows, culminated in a conservative reaction to his work that is still with us. Whether one agrees with Hofstadter’s critics or his fans, the importance of this seminal thinker cannot be denied.
“In this illuminating biography . . . [Brown]freshens the worn-out chronicle of postwar Upper West Side intelligentsia by re-telling it from Hofstadter’s playful, eternally skeptical, oddly uninflammatory point of view. . . . Above all, Brown helps readers assess Hofstadter as a member of a generation of American historians every bit as important as (and in some respects more so than) the well-known Progressive generation of Charles Beard, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Vernon Parrington.”—Sean Wilentz, New Republic
The New York Times - Sam Tanenhaus
Brown admirably balances respect for his subject with critical distance and persuasively makes the case that the ambiguousness of Hofstadter s legacy is inseparable from his continuing interest.
Editorials
Sam Tanenhaus
Brown admirably balances respect for his subject with critical distance and persuasively makes the case that the ambiguousness of Hofstadter’s legacy is inseparable from his continuing interest.— The New York Times
Chronicle of Higher Education
Eventually, most wised-up readers of history come to agree with the advice of E. H. Carr, cited and honored by David S. Brown, that ‘Before you study the history, study the historian.’ The payoff of Brown’s effort comes in Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography, an incisive interpretive profile.”— Carlin Romano
New York Times Book Review
[In] his intelligent and stimulating book. . . . Brown admirably balances respect for his subject with critical distance and persuasively makes the case that the ambiguousness of Hofstadter’s legacy is inseparable from his continuing interest. . . . At his best, Hofstadter remains vitally alive and endlessly instructive.”— Sam Tanenhaus
Washington Post
The most important political book of 2006 that is not a book about politics at all.— E.J. Dionne
New York Sun
Hofstadters's achievement, as the great historian of postwar liberalism, could hardly be a more perfect mirror of his age. As David Brown shows in his fascinating new study . . . Hofstadter's life and times prepared him to be the kind of historian he was. Indeed, the sometimes unsettling insight that drives Mr. Brown's book is that each generation of historians reads their own experience into the American past, turning historiography into a kind of biography.— Adam Kirsch
Washington Monthly
A biography . . . that is not only a revelation, but also a fascinating read. Brown . . . has written an account worthy of Hofstadter himself: wry, humane, and illuminating. . . . Brown perceptively uses Hofstadter's life as a lens through which to view the rise and fall of liberalism. It becomes clear from this book that Hofstadter was the first great historian of American conservatism, understanding like few on the left the grievances that have always animated America's right wing.— Jacob Heilbrunn
Jewish Exponent
A truly fascinating story, and very much to the point . . . since Hofstadter's private life did much to shape the content and thought behind his books. . . . Add to all this Brown's analysis of each of Hofstadter's important works, and his book makes for a remarkable tale, well-told, with relevance for our time.— Robert Leiter
North Carolina Historical Review
Analytical and critical yet deeply appreciative of Hofstadter's importance, Brown has written an elegant model study.— John David Smith
Belles Lettres
At a time when the strange interaction of economic discontents and social resentments yield wierd political furies . . . and the nation finds itself so patently ignorant of, and displaced in, the world at large (while still brandishing blunt power), Brown's intellectual biography of Richard Hofstadter proves especially opportune.— Howard Brick
The Historian
Brown has undertaken the task of 'finding the man' . . . and placing him within multiple contexts of American literary history, American historiography, American cultural history, American ethnic history generally, and American Jewish history particularly. He has succeeded in all his objectives and has produced a rich, skillfully written chronicle of a public intellectual.— Stuart E. Knee
American Historical Review
Brown's study provides a rewarding glimpse into the fascinating life—and a fine commentary on the enduring work—of the inimitable Richard Hofstadter.— James T. Kloppenberg
Chronicle of Higher Education
“Eventually, most wised-up readers of history come to agree with the advice of E. H. Carr, cited and honored by David S. Brown, that ‘Before you study the history, study the historian.’ The payoff of Brown’s effort comes in Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography, an incisive interpretive profile.”
New York Times Book Review
“[In] his intelligent and stimulating book. . . . Brown admirably balances respect for his subject with critical distance and persuasively makes the case that the ambiguousness of Hofstadter’s legacy is inseparable from his continuing interest. . . . At his best, Hofstadter remains vitally alive and endlessly instructive.”
Washington Post
"The most important political book of 2006 that is not a book about politics at all."
New York Sun
"Hofstadters's achievement, as the great historian of postwar liberalism, could hardly be a more perfect mirror of his age. As David Brown shows in his fascinating new study . . . Hofstadter's life and times prepared him to be the kind of historian he was. Indeed, the sometimes unsettling insight that drives Mr. Brown's book is that each generation of historians reads their own experience into the American past, turning historiography into a kind of biography."
Washington Monthly
"A biography . . . that is not only a revelation, but also a fascinating read. Brown . . . has written an account worthy of Hofstadter himself: wry, humane, and illuminating. . . . Brown perceptively uses Hofstadter's life as a lens through which to view the rise and fall of liberalism. It becomes clear from this book that Hofstadter was the first great historian of American conservatism, understanding like few on the left the grievances that have always animated America's right wing."
Jewish Exponent
"A truly fascinating story, and very much to the point . . . since Hofstadter's private life did much to shape the content and thought behind his books. . . . Add to all this Brown's analysis of each of Hofstadter's important works, and his book makes for a remarkable tale, well-told, with relevance for our time."
North Carolina Historical Review
"Analytical and critical yet deeply appreciative of Hofstadter's importance, Brown has written an elegant model study."
Belles Lettres
"At a time when the strange interaction of economic discontents and social resentments yield wierd political furies . . . and the nation finds itself so patently ignorant of, and displaced in, the world at large (while still brandishing blunt power), Brown's intellectual biography of Richard Hofstadter proves especially opportune."
The Historian
"Brown has undertaken the task of 'finding the man' . . . and placing him within multiple contexts of American literary history, American historiography, American cultural history, American ethnic history generally, and American Jewish history particularly. He has succeeded in all his objectives and has produced a rich, skillfully written chronicle of a public intellectual."
American Historical Review
"Brown's study provides a rewarding glimpse into the fascinating life--and a fine commentary on the enduring work--of the inimitable Richard Hofstadter."