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In Praise of The American Political Tradition

  • Symposium: Richard Hoftstadter and The American Political Tradition
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Abstract

No book is more exemplary in identifying the continuity of democratic statesmanship in the United States than Richard Hofstadter's second book. Its scope is long—from the Framers through the New Deal. The author's insights are brilliant, expressed with literary brio. No other book manages to convey the basic homogeneity of American politics with such persuasiveness, in blending that tradition with the defense of enterprise and property (and in sprinkling the portraits with such acerbic wit). The unifying thread nevertheless needs to be modified in the light of greater sensitivity to the ordeal of race, and in evaluating how the heritage of the New Deal has tempered the commitment to an unbridled capitalism.

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Notes

  1. Richard Kostelanetz, Master Minds: Portraits of Contemporary American Artists and Intellectuals (New York: Macmillan, 1969), 167.

  2. Quoted in Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, “Richard Hofstadter: A Progress,” in The Hofstadter Aegis: A Memorial (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1974), 312.

  3. David S. Brown, Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 51–52.

  4. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., “Richard Hofstadter,” in Pastmasters: Some Essays on American Historians, eds. Marcus Cunliffe and Robin Winks (New York: Harper & Row, 1969), 286.

  5. Michael Lind, The Next American Nation: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolution (New York: Free Press, 1995), 379, 380.

  6. Richard Hofstadter, The Progressive Historians: Turner, Beard, Parrington (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1968), 454–55.

  7. Richard Hofstadter, “U. B. Phillips and the Plantation Legend,” Journal of Negro History, 29 (April 1944), 124.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. American Studies Program, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, 02454-9110, USA

    Stephen J. Whitfield

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  1. Stephen J. Whitfield
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Correspondence to Stephen J. Whitfield.

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Whitfield, S.J. In Praise of The American Political Tradition. Soc 55, 131–135 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-018-0224-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-018-0224-3

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