The Paranoid Style in American Politics

By: Richard Hofstadter, Sean Wilentz - foreward

Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright

This timely reissue of Richard Hofstadter's classic work on the fringe groups that influence American electoral politics offers an invaluable perspective on contemporary domestic affairs. In The Paranoid Style in American Politics, acclaimed historian Richard Hofstadter examines the competing forces in American political discourse and how fringe groups can influence - and derail - the larger agendas of a political party.

He investigates the politics of the irrational, shedding light on how the behavior of individuals can seem out of proportion with actual political issues, and how such behavior impacts larger groups. With such other classic essays as "Free Silver and the Mind of 'Coin' Harvey" and "What Happened to the Antitrust Movement?", The Paranoid Style in American Politics remains both a seminal text of political history and a vital analysis of the ways in which political groups function in the United States.

©1965 Richard Hofstadter (P)2018 Tantor

If history does not repeat, it rhymes in a minor key

I wish that I had known that this was the book that’s inspired the bad religion song named the same. An eye-opening read on how, almost once a generation, we repeat the same mistakes.

Written in the 50s and 60s...

And yet it eerily describes today's political scene. The 5th and 6th audio-chapters will blow you away. The book is a series of essays compiled as a volume so the subjects don't easily hang together unless you remember the thesis described early on.

Awesome!

Resonates today

Great collection of essays. It's amazing how many of these ideas linger today in slightly different forms. I even liked the wonky antitrust essay, which is great reading if you ever studied anything about antitrust. It really gives good context for current debates about "Big Tech." The essay at the end about Coin's School was fascinating for both it's explanation of the Free Silver movement and again how the characters we see today existed in the American past (although no one is advocating the free coinage of silver).

Narrator sounds like the rabbi from Seinfeld

The narrator on this sounds like the rabbi from Seinfeld. That was a little distracting