Product Description
The Paranoid Style in American Politics
Author(s): Richard Hofstadter
Format: Paperback
The classic and very funny account of the dark side of American politics
'Calm, clear, dispassionate and devastating - and a joy to read' Harper's
'Brilliant and influential ... his evisceration of populism has found a new generation of readers' — Guardian
'American political life ... has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds'
How can a country be captured by rumours, surreal conspiracy theories and the most brazen of conmen? The historian Richard Hofstadter asked these questions in the 1960s, amid fears of rising extremism in America. Yet his dazzling dissection of the paranoid worldview - a brew of overheated exaggeration, suspicion and perceived victimhood that can derail entire nations - is a lesson for the ages in the seductive politics of the irrational.
In an era where we ourselves feel assailed by endless paranoid public statements it is comforting to read Hofstadter's incisive refusal to see these as something new. In his discussion of famous and obscure untruths, some of which have profoundly impacted American domestic and foreign policy, he provides the antidote for the present day.
'The Paranoid Style in American Politics' was first published as an essay in Harper's Magazine in late 1964 and has been argued over ever since.
About the Author
Richard Hofstadter (1916–70) was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University and one of the great American historians and intellectuals. He won the Pulitzer Prize twice, for The Age of Reform and for Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.
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