The American Political Tradition

The skeptical classic that taught Americans to read their own founders without genuflecting. Hofstadter reexamined the men on the money and found them more interesting, and more compromised, than the myths allowed. The book's gift is a habit of mind: take the country seriously enough to tell the truth about it. He admired the republic too much to flatter it, which is the only kind of patriotism a historian can honestly offer.

The Columbia historian who taught Americans to be skeptical of their own myths without ceasing to take the country seriously. The American Political Tradition reread the men on the money. The Paranoid Style in American Politics named a recurring temper in the national life, the conspiratorial, apocalyptic mood that returns in every generation. The essay was published in 1964 and explains a great deal that came after it.