American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

Rating:
Summary: A Political Milestone
Review: "American Political Tradition" became an immediate milestone in the field of American political study, propelling author Richard Hofstadter to the frontal ranks of historians at the age of 32 upon its publication in 1948. The history professor at Columbia University would ultimately win 2 Pulitzer Prizes before dying at the age of 54 in 1970.

The point Hofstadter consistently made is how important pragmatic considerations were in the evolution of the great political shakers and movers of American political annals. He rejects the view of historian Charles Beard and others about the impact of economic determinism in the foundation and shaping of early America. Hofstadter does not discount its impact, but cites the pragmatic necessity of studious compromise involving the interests of important American sociological groups which were often disparate, such as the manufacturing interests of the north and the rural farming interests of the south, as well as slavery and anti-slavery interests. The need for compromise influenced Thomas Jefferson in constructing a U.S. Constitution, which relied on the separation powers doctrine of English philosopher John Locke and that of separation of powers advanced by French social scientist Montesquieu.

The chapter on Franklin Delano Roosevelt is fascinating as a study in political pragmatism. Roosevelt ran on a Democratic Party platform for 1932 which rivals one of the most conservative doctrines ever put on paper by an American political party. He initially criticized incumbent President Herbert Hoover for spending too much money in dealing with the Depression and its related effects. Once in office he changed his mind and forged a government activist agenda embraced by progressive reformers.

Abraham Lincoln is studied in detail as well within the framework of a very astute political figure with his eye squarely on success in that arena from the beginning, where the "railsplitter" image played well with voters. He purposely straddled the fence on the slavery issue since there was much controversy surrounding the issue even within the fledgling Republican Party which he joined after the Whig Party folded, despite its reputation for being an essentially anti-slavery party.

Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson are evaluated as two important political figures who perpetually juggled conservative basic instincts against the need they believed existed for certain progressive systemic reforms. For Roosevelt this meant anti-trust legislation and conservation, while Wilson, whose traditional Virginia conservative roots left him unwilling to budge in the field of race relations, nonetheless undertook mighty electoral reforms embraced by William Jennings Bryan and the populist movement. Bryan is another figure covered in the book.

The chapter of Herbert Hoover is also fascinating. Hofstadter envisioned him as the last of the laissez-faire American presidents. In the wake of the great upheavals occurring in America, particularly related to the Great Depression, a political pragmatism later advanced by Roosevelt to stem the tide of unrest was eschewed by Hoover.

Rating:
Summary: The times make the man, and the man makes the times.
Review: I am a high school US History AP student and for me this book has become an integral part of my study. It eloquently sets forth a variation of America's history that makes it ideal for filling in the gaps that our text leaves. This is an excellent book and a necessity for every US History Student.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully analytial
Review: It was pretty tedious to read, but there were many points well taken and it was overall a very good, informative book

Rating:
Summary: Sensible Revisionism
Review: Normally, I can't stand revisionist history. It tends to sacrifice historical accuracy for political proselytizing. Howard Zinn's "Peoples' History of the United States" is a case in point: almost everything Zinn says seems dedicated to supporting the author's left-wing agenda.

Hofstadter's book neatly transcends this problem. It is most definitely revisionist. Each chapter examines a different American political leader, with a great deal of in-depth detail and criticism. However, Hofstadter escapes the political trap of mentioning only the negative or only the positive points about his subjects. Both sides are always examined in detail.

This evenhandedness results in a very interesting and useful text. Rather than heroes and villains, our past politicians come across as human beings, and very interesting ones at that.

A choice history text, both detailed and objective.

Rating:
Summary: Sensible Revisionism
Review: Normally, I can't stand revisionist history. It tends to sacrifice historical accuracy for political proselytizing. Howard Zinn's "Peoples' History of the United States" is a case in point: almost everything Zinn says seems dedicated to supporting the author's left-wing agenda.

Hofstadter's book neatly transcends this problem. It is most definitely revisionist. Each chapter examines a different American political leader, with a great deal of in-depth detail and criticism. However, Hofstadter escapes the political trap of mentioning only the negative or only the positive points about his subjects. Both sides are always examined in detail.

This evenhandedness results in a very interesting and useful text. Rather than heroes and villains, our past politicians come across as human beings, and very interesting ones at that.

A choice history text, both detailed and objective.

Rating:
Summary: Wonderfully analytial
Review: Richard Hofstadter creted a book that has become the foundation of much modern history. Many find his views biased, but these people themselves fail to see that Hofstadter has tried to dispell many of the myths that once surrounded these greats, and many people are to secure with these myths to release them.

Rating:
Summary: profoundly awful
Review: The book's purpose is twofold: first, to delegitimize the historic American Left by portraying all of the nation's history as a mere argument on the margins of what was actually a broad conservative consensus; second, to pave the way for a new Left by painting that consensus as ideologically bankrupt. In order to achieve the first goal, Hofstadter uses a trick familiar to every gadfly and pickle barrel orator; he simply argues the opposite of the accepted wisdom. Thus, his chapter headings include: I. The Founding Fathers: an Age of Realism; II. Thomas Jefferson: the Aristocrat as Democrat; III. Andrew Jackson and the Rise of Liberal Capitalism; IX. Theodore Roosevelt: the Conservative as Progressive; and X. Woodrow Wilson: the Conservative as Liberal. Get it? The Founders weren't idealists but realists. The liberal icons of the Left--Jefferson, Jackson, TR and Wilson--were actually all conservatives. This continues right up to FDR, who despite a brief and half-hearted break from this past, refuses to go along with the most farsighted and sweeping aspects of the New Deal. As this version of American history unfolds, we're treated to a kind of grand conspiracy theory whereby the leaders of the Left turn out to be wolves in sheep's clothing, secretly supporting the system and channeling discontent back into heterodoxy.

Then comes the hammer blow, because do you know what all of these schemers and dupes, either naively or maliciously, preached and believed in? As Hofstadter scornfully informs us, all of them believed in individualism, free markets, competition, equality of opportunity and all of those hoary old shibboleths that had been totally discredited by 1948 and would surely never again see the light of day:

The things Hoover believed in--efficiency, enterprise, opportunity, individualism, substantial laissez-faire, personal success, material welfare--were all in the dominant American tradition. The ideas he represented--ideas that to so many people made him seem hateful or ridiculous after 1929--were precisely the same ideas that in the remoter past of the nineteenth century and the more immediate past of the New Era had an almost irresistible lure for the majority of Americans. In the language of Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln these ideas had been fresh and invigorating; in the language of Herbert Hoover they seemed stale and oppressive. It is a significant fact that in the crisis of the thirties the man who represented these conceptions found himself unable even to communicate himself and what he stood for. Almost overnight his essential beliefs had become outlandish and unintelligible. The victim of his faith in the power of capitalism to survive and prosper without gigantic government props, Hoover was the last presidential spokesman of the hallowed doctrines of laissez-faire liberalism, and his departure from Washington marked the decline of a great tradition.

Hofstadter later asks of Hoover: "Could he have seriously believed that free enterprise might be restored to the postwar world?" This is what we mean when we speak of hubris in Greek tragedy. It would be amusing if Hofstadter and his ilk had not proceeded to do so much harm with their abandonment of American values and traditions and their eager embrace of a centralized planned economy. It's really too bad that he died so young. I'd have liked to have seen him explain away the rise of Ronald Reagan and the Opportunity Society.

This book is profoundly awful. It is wrong in its major theses, informed by a really snide tone of self congratulation and, in celebrating the worst moment in the history of American governance (the rise of the Social Welfare State), fails to reckon with the fundamental tension in American history (indeed in all of human history), the ongoing struggle between the forces of freedom and the advocates of security. I don't doubt that this book was influential, and in that sense great, but to call it one of the best nonfiction books of the century is to abuse truth, defile common sense and elevate partisan political loyalties over clear eyed analysis.

GRADE: F

Rating:
Summary: Social history at it's best
Review: This wonderful book fills a hole in American history that's been open too long. Instead of treating great figures as saints or unapproachable geniuses Hofstadter gives a realistic picture of what they believed and what they stood for. More than that he points to the philosophic and cultural continuity that these figures embodied, struggled with, and sometimes redefined. It's as much about how the greater American view on work and indivdualism evolved from the founding as about the men who made it. Also, kind of inadvertantly, the author weaves in a history of the American liberal idea and how Jeffersonian liberalism stressing free markets, small business, and individualism, was transformed into New Deal liberalism. He argues that the transformation wasn't a betrayal but was instead a development based on necessary responses to an economically and socially changing world. Enjoy!