Reviews

Review: Brown, Richard Hofstadter

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Sam Tanenhaus has written a detailed four page review of David S. Brown’s Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography which ran in both the August 4 edition of the International Herald Tribune as well as the New York Times Book Review of August 6. Tanenhuas calls Brown’s work “intelligent and stimulating” citing Brown’s ability to “admirably balance his respect for his subject with a critical distance,” that allows Brown to achieve an unparalleled degree of authenticity in his account of the legacy of one of liberalism’s most celebrated and respected intellectuals.
The author of The American Political Tradition and the winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Richard Hofstadter was one of the most important historians of twentieth-century America. His championing of the liberal politics that came out of the New Deal, his fierce opposition to McCarthyism and then the acolytes of Barry Goldwater, and the many ideas that he introduced to our nation’s political conversation shaped not only the way we think of the historian’s role in civic life, but steered the direction of American politics as well. David S. Brown’s Richard Hofstadter: An Intellectual Biography explores Hofstadter’s remarkable life story in the context of the rise and fall of American liberalism.
Read an excerpt from the book.