American Political Tradition

<i>The American Political Tradition</i> is one of the most influential and widely read historical volumes of our time. First published in 1948 its elegance passion and iconoclastic erudition laid the groundwork for a totally new understanding of the American past. By writing a kind of intellectual history of the assumptions behind American politics Richard Hofstadter changed the way Americans understand the relationship between power and ideas in their national experience. Like only a handful of American historians before him--Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles A. Beard are examples--Hofstadter was able to articulate in a single work a historical vision that inspired and shaped an entire generation.