The Paranoid Style in American Politics
May 2026 · Random House
Ebook
400
Pages
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Eligible
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infoThis book will become available on May 28, 2026. You will not be charged until it is released.
About this ebook
A celebration of one the most remarkable and incisive of all commentators on American politics
This richly enjoyable book is an unimprovable guide to the strange highways and byways of American life, written by Richard Hofstadter, the great American historian and intellectual. How is it that a country with such resources, so much space, with such a premium on education and written culture, can so quickly be reduced to a mere headless chicken by rumours, surreal conspiracy theories and the most brazen of con-men?
The only hope offered by Hofstadter is that America has so often been assailed by such gusts of nonsense that we should by now be able to spot the manias, fabrications, patently absurd rumours. There never has been a golden age of reasonably intelligent discourse. But, unfortunately, perhaps there never will be.
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.
This richly enjoyable book is an unimprovable guide to the strange highways and byways of American life, written by Richard Hofstadter, the great American historian and intellectual. How is it that a country with such resources, so much space, with such a premium on education and written culture, can so quickly be reduced to a mere headless chicken by rumours, surreal conspiracy theories and the most brazen of con-men?
The only hope offered by Hofstadter is that America has so often been assailed by such gusts of nonsense that we should by now be able to spot the manias, fabrications, patently absurd rumours. There never has been a golden age of reasonably intelligent discourse. But, unfortunately, perhaps there never will be.
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.
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.
‘The Paranoid Style in American Politics’ was first published in Harper’s Magazine in late 1964 and has been argued over ever since.
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