Customer Reviews

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"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.

The classic story of American History, as told by Richard Hofstadter, has rightly come to be thought of as a masterpiece of American history since its original publication in 1948. This well deserved reputation comes from the rich storytelling, attention to detail, and thoughtful and complete narrative Hofstadter puts forward in this book.

Hofstadter takes as his guide one figure from each generation starting from the beginning of the Republic, and through biographical sketch describes both the historical figure and the time period he is depicting. Beginning with Jefferson and including people such as Jackson, Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, Hofstadter demonstrates how a combination of the great men and the times they lived in shaped what have come down to us as the leading tradition in American politics: the belief in American greatness, individualism, and compassion.

The most significant contribution of this book is to show how these men, who have come down to us as legendary and nearly mythological figures were very much political animals. Just like Bill Clinton and George Bush make decisions today based on political calculation, so to do Lincoln and Jefferson. That these men were not demigods but in fact mere humans makes their achievements that much more incredible.

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!

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.

Richard Hofstadter, late professor at Columbia University, launched the Consensus school of history with his book, The American Political Tradition, and the Men Who Made It. Published on the heels of World War II, Hofstadter examines twelve central American political figures, mostly, but not all, presidents. Although originally written as twelve separate essays, Hofstadter binds all of his portraits together via common themes running throughout the work and enunciated in the Introduction. While the Consensus view of American history only held sway for a brief number of years, Hofstadter, rightully, continued to be considered one of the most brilliant historians in the country. The book is a classic of American history, one of the rare texts that both explores history, and is history.

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.

This book is a collection of 12 essays that deal with individuals and their impact on history. Starting with the founding fathers and ending with Roosevelt, it is part biographical but more so a historical analysis of the impact the subject made on the times. The book's essays are usually broken down into three subject areas and shows what influences were put on the subject and how the subject reacted to them. If the writer were living today, he would undoubtely have included John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, William F. Buckley and Ross Perot. In other words, each period had a particular individual that stood out and influenced many other thinkers, the public , and politicians. This book is really what history is all about, events shaping men and men shaping events. It is historical analysis; and it shows why reading and studying history is an exercise worth doing.

This is one of the greatest books of American history written by one of the greatest American historians. This is what good political biography should be -- a terrific achievement!

This marvelous series of essays on American leaders made Richard Hofstadter's reputation as one of the most important young historians in the country during the late-1940's. Professor Hofstadter took on this assignment at a very early age. He was only 28 years old when he started this book, now a bit of a cult classic in American history, and finished it when he was 32. In spite of his youth, he clearly had fully formed opinions on what drives American politics. Hofstadter throws new lights on American history in a series of twelve finely-drawn portraits, mostly of Presidents but one of a stern moralist, Wendell Phillips, and one of a constantly disappointed Presidential candidate, William Jennings Bryan.

In each of these sketches, all masterful in their unique viewpoints and careful analytical approach, Hofstadter sees similarities that quickly bubble to the surface. In all of them, the consistent struggle is that of the conflict between differing views of economic organization. That is the prism through which Hofstadter constructs his view of American political development. In all of this, we are treated to a great ride through our nation's history from an historian who refuses to tell the familiar story but reaches for an understanding of how opinions change over time.

Jefferson, the great Virginia aristocrat, is as clear and eloquent as any of the founders in his defense of the common man, both his rights and his liberties. But of course Jefferson's love of liberty had its clear limits: he was a lifelong slaveowner and almost assuredly the father of one of his slave's children. Andrew Jackson struggles for the common man, dismantling the Bank of the United States, but Hofstadter reminds us that Jackson's early days were spent defending the rights of the propertied class.

John C. Calhoun is presented as the most artful defender of slavery, an institution that had, apart from its heinous and inexcusable human consequences, the effect of sharply reducing the cost of labor in cotton farming, a highly labor-intensive industry. We see the emerging clash between the North and the South as an economic argument. Curiously, Calhoun is also presented as a Unionist but he wanted a special kind of Union, one dominated by the South not the North. Here again, Hofstadter's take on Calhoun presents him in a quite different light than the most portraits of the Great Nullifier.

It is Hofstadter's analysis of Lincoln that most arrests the attention of any student of American history. Hofstadter calls the Emancipation Proclamation not much more than a "bill of lading". It called for emancipation not because slavery was wrong but only that the emancipation of the slaves was required for "military necessity". Only those slaves in the disloyal Southern states were to be freed. Slaves in the loyal Border States were not touched by the Proclamation. His hesitation to fully address the moral wrongness of slavery is based on electoral politics, according to Hofstadter. The most important source of Lincoln's electoral strength was centered in the Midwestern (then referred to as "Northwestern") parts of the country, where voters feared that the institution of slavery, if it spread to other parts of the country, would depress wages and result in more intense competition for jobs. It was not the moral wrongness of slavery that Lincoln initially appealed to but to a more convincing economic argument. Nevertheless, Hofstadter eventually focuses on Lincoln's slow turn to the abolition of slavery in all parts of the country. But we are left with a portrait of Lincoln, probably our greatest president, that is at times frustratingly nuanced.

Hofstadter's discussion of the emerging strand of progressivism in American politics develops slowly. The post-Civil War period was perhaps the most dynamic period of industrial development in the nation's history. Only by the end of the nineteenth century did the voice of the common man find its full volume. William Jennings Bryan was this voice but his career never achieved its full potential. Bryan, three times the nominee of the Democratic party, failed in his most important quest: to change the monetary system of the country from one based on gold to a more accomodating system. Hofstadter's discussion of Bryan is a sad interlude between the magnificence of Lincoln and the emergence of Theodore Roosevelt.

This is perhaps the most puzzling of Hofstadter's portraits. Roosevelt is here presented as a conservative. He opposes bills to raise the salaries of police and civil employees. He guards against the potential violence of labor strikes and urges firing live bullets at striking workers, if necessary. He enters the Presidency with no strong position on the problems caused by corporate power. In fact, as Hofstadter relates, he admits "I have let up in every case where I have had any possible excuse for doing so." One is left with the impression, very much encouraged by Hofstadter, that Teddy was far more noise than substance. This is in stark contrast to recent biographies of Teddy; wanted to read a fuller exposition of Hofstadter's take on Roosevelt, particularly in view of the now widely-celebrated Part Three of Edmund Morgan on Roosevelt, an expansive but ultimately hagiographic study.

The final two portraits (excepting a brief piece on the immensely talented but woefully inept Herbert Hoover) are perhaps the most interesting, since they touch on issues that have emerged in the present decade.
Both Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt had clear conceptions of the use of governmental power to influence events. Wilson turned from a highly successful career as a college president to politics, almost as an afterthought. He came from an intensely conservative background, as did Roosevelt, and brought with him highly conventional views. Hofstadter traces the gradual movement of Wilson, first as a governor and then as President, towards more progressive positions, ones that infuriated business interests. He instituted the income tax, created the Federal Reserve, reduced the tariff (the first significant reduction since the Civil War), and extended control over big business with the Clayton Anti-Trust Act. Resentment against Wilson became white-hot as a result of this. This loss of trust enabled the Republican party to defeat the League of Nations treaty, a world structure that Wilson felt would be his most signal achievement. It ended badly for Wilson and Hofstadter sums it up acutely: "He said that American entrance to the war would be a world calamity, and led the nation in...He said the future... of the world depended on removing the economic causes of war, and did not attempt even to discuss these causes at the Peace Conference." Here it is again: economics rules, according to Hofstadter.

Finally, it is Franklin Roosevelt's turn for the Hofstadter lens. Here, he is at his most critical. Not only does Roosevelt seem to be naïve and practically disinterested in economic policy but he fails miserably in restoring the American economy, lurching from one unsuccessful program to another. Only with the run-up to World War does the American economy respond to governmental intervention. By now, after eleven portraits, each of which offers a different slant on the most prominent American political figures, Hofstadter's reservations about Roosevelt seem predictable and a bit forced. Nevertheless, Hofstadter's overall point is well-served: the American Political Tradition is one of compromise, constant tacking to catch the wind, shifting to capture the mood of the electorate, and growth as broader perspectives become more visible.

In all of this, Hofstadter seems to be saying that important questions are ultimately decided by society's attempt to move towards a middle ground, one where the scales of opinion reach equilibrium. He does this with a series of portraits, each of which illustrate the process of political movement. Not surprisingly, economics has determined most of the important issues of our history. Hofstadter's book is deeply satisfying and constantly interesting. It may not be the easiest read in American history but it is one of the most important.

Easy to read textbook on American Political History. My daughters attend a highly-prestigous, collegiate preparatory all-girls school. This book is the requirement for AP American History.