Free Ebook The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch
By downloading this soft data publication The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch in the on-line link download, you remain in the primary step right to do. This site really supplies you convenience of exactly how to get the best publication, from best seller to the brand-new released book. You can find more books in this site by checking out every web link that we provide. One of the collections, The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch is among the very best collections to sell. So, the very first you get it, the very first you will certainly get all good for this book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch
Free Ebook The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch
Book fans, when you require an extra book to read, find the book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch right here. Never ever stress not to locate what you require. Is the The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch your required book currently? That's true; you are actually a good visitor. This is an excellent book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch that originates from wonderful writer to show you. The book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch supplies the best experience and also lesson to take, not only take, but likewise discover.
Maintain your means to be below and also read this web page finished. You can appreciate browsing guide The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch that you actually describe get. Below, getting the soft documents of the book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch can be done effortlessly by downloading in the web link web page that we give here. Of course, the The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch will certainly be your own faster. It's no have to wait for the book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch to obtain some days later on after buying. It's no should go outside under the heats at mid day to visit the book shop.
This is some of the advantages to take when being the participant and get guide The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch right here. Still ask just what's various of the various other site? We give the hundreds titles that are developed by suggested authors as well as authors, all over the world. The link to buy and also download The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch is also very simple. You might not discover the complicated website that order to do even more. So, the method for you to obtain this The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch will be so simple, will not you?
Based on the The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch specifics that we provide, you may not be so confused to be right here and also to be participant. Obtain currently the soft file of this book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch as well as save it to be all yours. You conserving can lead you to stimulate the convenience of you in reading this book The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch Also this is forms of soft data. You could truly make better opportunity to get this The American Political Tradition, By Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch as the suggested book to read.
A revised edition of the clasic study of American politics from the Founding Fathers to FDR.
- Sales Rank: #14400989 in Books
- Published on: 1961
- Binding: Unknown Binding
From the Inside Flap
A revised edition of the clasic study of American politics from the Founding Fathers to FDR.
Most helpful customer reviews
27 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
A Masterwork of its Genre
By David Southworth
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.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Reason I Got a 5 on my AP Exam
By Amazon Customer
This was the central book to our course for AP United States History. I didn't read the pageant at all ever (despite what the teacher assigned). All I did was read this book and write essays for them.
This along with recycled AP tests that's were used throughout the course as regular tests effectively enabled me to get an A in the course and 5 on the exam with zero, yes 0, studying for the final.
Hofstadter eloquently teaches the underlying causes as to why things happened in history through the use of the U. S. presidents.
Overall, if you're an AP U. S. student, pick up this book, outline it, write a multiple college level essays, forget about studying, and get a 5.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful.
a classic of American history
By David H. MacCallum
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 na�ve 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.
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch PDF
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch EPub
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch Doc
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch iBooks
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch rtf
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch Mobipocket
The American Political Tradition, by Richard Hofstadter, Christopher Lasch Kindle
