I read sections of this book over and over, trying to get a grasp on politics, and finding this revisionist history much more interesting than what I learned in high school. ( )

Democracy carries with it the responsibility, even obligation, to inform oneself about the political tradition. In the case of the U.S., that begins with the American State Papers (Declaration of Independence, etc), supplemented by Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and Second Inaugural Address. Then there is a short list of secondary lit about the tradition, and this book belongs on that list, no matter how short it it. ( )

A revised edition of the classic study of American politics from the Founding Fathers to FDR. The late Richard Hofstadter was DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. He was the author of many books and articles on American History and twice received the Pulitzer Prize: in History in 1956, and in general nonfiction in 1964.

During the 2016 election cycle perhaps we can look at Trump and the Democratic panoply: Trump as The Aristocrat as Democrat; and in the tradition of the hapless Obama: Hillary and Sanders as the Patrician as Agitator.

A study of American political philosophy in the lives of those who made it, including Jefferson, Jackson, Calhoun, Lincoln, Wendell Philips, Cleveland, Bryan, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Wilson and Hoover. Highly praised in its day, now rather outdated --there is a 1989 version. ( )

Hofstadter writes very well and makes big claims, which is a pleasant change from a lot of contemporary history. The book's general thesis - that the American Political Tradition is by and large an ongoing defense of the property rights of the well-off - seems correct. The book itself lags a bit. It's odd but understandable that the worst chapters are about people who are just transparently evil and or idiots; he's at his best as a debunker (i.e., Andrew Jackson was no champion of the oppressed) and obviously doesn't much care to take yet another swipe at the Grant presidency.

The most entertaining part of this book, though, is hearing from my historian friend that Hofstadter is regarded as an arch-conservative. I know he changed some later on in his career, but this book would be considered an unpublishable incitement to class war these days. Meanwhile the self-professed radical professors and graduate students are writing about the Disabled Phillipino-American Bisexual Communities of Northern Montana from 1863-1864. Sometimes you just have to throw yourselves on the gears of power, right? ( )