Recent from talks
Richard Hofstadter
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916 – October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual. Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier historical materialist approach to history, in the 1950s he came closer to the concept of "consensus history", and was epitomized by some of his admirers as the "iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus." Others see in his work an early critique of the one-dimensional society, since he was equally critical of socialist and capitalist models of society, and bemoaned the "consensus" within the society as "bounded by the horizons of property and entrepreneurship", criticizing the "hegemonic liberal capitalist culture running throughout the course of American history".
Hofstadter's books include Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963); and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century; and in 1964 for the cultural history Anti-intellectualism in American Life. He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916, to a Jewish father, Emil A. Hofstadter, and a German-American Lutheran mother, Katherine (née Hill), who died when Richard was ten. He attended Fosdick-Masten Park High School in Buffalo. Hofstadter then studied philosophy and history at the University at Buffalo, from 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius W. Pratt.
Hofstadter was raised as an Episcopalian, but later identified more with his Jewish roots. Antisemitism has cost him fellowships at Columbia University and attractive professorships. The Buffalo Jewish Hall of Fame lists him as one of the "Jewish Buffalonians who have made a lasting contribution to the world."
In 1936, Hofstadter entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University, where his advisor Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual, social, and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research. In 1938, he became a member of the Communist Party USA, but soon became disillusioned by the Stalinist party discipline and show trials. After withdrawing from the party in August 1939 following the Hitler–Stalin Pact, he retained a critical left-wing perspective that was still obvious in American Political Tradition in 1948.
Hofstadter earned his PhD in 1942. In 1944, he published his dissertation, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a critique of late-19th-century American capitalism and its ruthless "dog-eat-dog" economic competition and Social Darwinian self-justification. Conservative critics, including Robert C. Bannister, disagreed with his critique. The sharpest criticism of the book focused on Hofstadter's weakness as a researcher: "he did little or no research into manuscripts, newspapers, archival, or unpublished sources, relying instead primarily on secondary sources augmented by his lively style and wide-ranging interdisciplinary readings, thereby producing well-written arguments based on scattered evidence he found by reading other historians." The book was commercially successful, selling 200,000 copies.
From 1942 to 1946, Hofstadter taught history at the University of Maryland, where he became a close friend of the popular sociologist C. Wright Mills and read extensively in the fields of sociology and psychology, absorbing ideas of Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, Sigmund Freud, and the Frankfurt School. His later books frequently refer to behavioral concepts such as "status anxiety".
In 1946, Hofstadter joined Columbia University's faculty, and in 1959 he succeeded Allan Nevins as the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History, where he played a major role in directing Ph.D. dissertations. According to his biographer David Brown, after 1945 Hofstadter philosophically "broke" with Charles A. Beard and moved to the right, becoming leader of the "consensus historians", a term Hofstadter disapproved of, but that was widely applied to his apparent rejection of the Beardian idea that the sole basis for understanding American history is the fundamental conflict between economic classes.
Hub AI
Richard Hofstadter AI simulator
(@Richard Hofstadter_simulator)
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (August 6, 1916 – October 24, 1970) was an American historian and public intellectual. Hofstadter was the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History at Columbia University. Rejecting his earlier historical materialist approach to history, in the 1950s he came closer to the concept of "consensus history", and was epitomized by some of his admirers as the "iconic historian of postwar liberal consensus." Others see in his work an early critique of the one-dimensional society, since he was equally critical of socialist and capitalist models of society, and bemoaned the "consensus" within the society as "bounded by the horizons of property and entrepreneurship", criticizing the "hegemonic liberal capitalist culture running throughout the course of American history".
Hofstadter's books include Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915 (1944); The American Political Tradition (1948); The Age of Reform (1955); Anti-intellectualism in American Life (1963); and the essays collected in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). He was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize: in 1956 for The Age of Reform, an analysis of the populism movement in the 1890s and the progressive movement of the early 20th century; and in 1964 for the cultural history Anti-intellectualism in American Life. He was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Hofstadter was born in Buffalo, New York, in 1916, to a Jewish father, Emil A. Hofstadter, and a German-American Lutheran mother, Katherine (née Hill), who died when Richard was ten. He attended Fosdick-Masten Park High School in Buffalo. Hofstadter then studied philosophy and history at the University at Buffalo, from 1933, under the diplomatic historian Julius W. Pratt.
Hofstadter was raised as an Episcopalian, but later identified more with his Jewish roots. Antisemitism has cost him fellowships at Columbia University and attractive professorships. The Buffalo Jewish Hall of Fame lists him as one of the "Jewish Buffalonians who have made a lasting contribution to the world."
In 1936, Hofstadter entered the doctoral program in history at Columbia University, where his advisor Merle Curti was demonstrating how to synthesize intellectual, social, and political history based upon secondary sources rather than primary-source archival research. In 1938, he became a member of the Communist Party USA, but soon became disillusioned by the Stalinist party discipline and show trials. After withdrawing from the party in August 1939 following the Hitler–Stalin Pact, he retained a critical left-wing perspective that was still obvious in American Political Tradition in 1948.
Hofstadter earned his PhD in 1942. In 1944, he published his dissertation, Social Darwinism in American Thought, 1860–1915, a critique of late-19th-century American capitalism and its ruthless "dog-eat-dog" economic competition and Social Darwinian self-justification. Conservative critics, including Robert C. Bannister, disagreed with his critique. The sharpest criticism of the book focused on Hofstadter's weakness as a researcher: "he did little or no research into manuscripts, newspapers, archival, or unpublished sources, relying instead primarily on secondary sources augmented by his lively style and wide-ranging interdisciplinary readings, thereby producing well-written arguments based on scattered evidence he found by reading other historians." The book was commercially successful, selling 200,000 copies.
From 1942 to 1946, Hofstadter taught history at the University of Maryland, where he became a close friend of the popular sociologist C. Wright Mills and read extensively in the fields of sociology and psychology, absorbing ideas of Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, Sigmund Freud, and the Frankfurt School. His later books frequently refer to behavioral concepts such as "status anxiety".
In 1946, Hofstadter joined Columbia University's faculty, and in 1959 he succeeded Allan Nevins as the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History, where he played a major role in directing Ph.D. dissertations. According to his biographer David Brown, after 1945 Hofstadter philosophically "broke" with Charles A. Beard and moved to the right, becoming leader of the "consensus historians", a term Hofstadter disapproved of, but that was widely applied to his apparent rejection of the Beardian idea that the sole basis for understanding American history is the fundamental conflict between economic classes.