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The Paranoid Style in American Politics

Richard Hofstadter

$28.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English
Penguin Classics
25 August 2026
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, suspicion and perceived victimhood, which can derail entire nations - is a lesson for the ages in the seductive politics of the irrational.

In an era where we feel assailed by endless paranoid public statements, Hofstadter's discussion of famous and obscure untruths, some of which have profoundly impacted American domestic and foreign policy, provide the antidote for the present day.
By:  
Imprint:   Penguin Classics
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 35mm
Weight:   500g
ISBN:   9780241802007
ISBN 10:   0241802008
Series:   Penguin Modern Classics
Pages:   352
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Primary ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming

Richard Hofstadter (1916-70) 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.

Reviews for The Paranoid Style in American Politics

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. * The New Republic *


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