The Paranoid Style in American Politics
$26.62
- Paperback
352 pages
- Release Date
25 August 2026
Summary
The classic - and very funny - account of the dark side of American politics.
“American political life… has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds.”
How can a country be captured by rumours, surreal conspiracy theories, and the most brazen of conmen? The historian Richard Hofstadter asked these questions in the 1960s, amid fears of rising extremism in America. Yet his dazzling dissection of the paranoid worldview - a brew of overheated exaggeration, susp…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780241802007 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0241802008 |
| Author: | Richard Hofstadter |
| Publisher: | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Imprint: | Penguin Classics |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 352 |
| Release Date: | 25 August 2026 |
| Weight: | 258g |
| Dimensions: | 197mm x 129mm x 22mm |
| Series: | Penguin Modern Classics |
What They're Saying
Critics Review
Hofstadter’s essays… are calm, clear, dispassionate and devastating - and a joy to read * Harper’s *
Hofstadter’s status theory helps us understand a political history that goes far beyond the issues of the fifties and sixties which it was invoked to explain * New Republic *
The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains a singular and powerful part of Hofstadter’s formidable intellectual legacy. If we are to grasp the toxic undercurrents that still run through [American] national politics today, it is an excellent place to start for lessons about a democratic world gone wrong – Sean Wilentz
About The Author
Richard Hofstadter
Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970) 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.
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