-Caveat Lector- from: New York History Vol.XLVII No.3 July 1966 New York State Historical Association©1966 Cooperstown, New York ----- The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. By Richard Hofstadter. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1965. Pp. xiv, 315. $5.95) Richard Hofstadter's style of history rather than the paranoid style of American politics provides unity to this collection of essays. Readers familiar with Hofstadter's history will recognize most of the seven essays. Despite this, their publication as a unit is fortunate, because in the heated historical debate which has whirled around Professor Hofstadter since the appearance of The Age of Reform in 1955, the arguments often centered on specific points of fact or peripheral issues, overshadowing the conceptual pattern fundamental to Hofstadter's approach. While the lucid style and provocative conclusions which characterize the essays, make them incisive in their own right, the book as a whole, perhaps derives its greatest value from the opportunity it provides for a much needed dispassionate re-examination of the author's historical methodology. After considering the "paranoid style" in American history, Hofstadter examines the recent expression of that style in the political right. He defines the paranoid style as a conspiratorial world -view seen in apocalyptic terms, which dictates a militant and uncompromising posture for adherents in their struggle against the demonic conspiracy which would destroy the nation, culture and way of life. This style Hofstadter tells us, appeared as early as 1798 when elements of the New England clergy saw the Bavarian Illuminati behind the Jeffersonians, and has since reappeared in various historical guises: the anti-Masonic move-ment, anti-Catholicism, Populism, McCarthyism and the contemporary radical right. Hofstadter suggests, but unfortunately fails to explore in depth, that the paranoid world view stems from religious millennialism. In discussing the forces that propel the paranoid disposition into, political activity, Hofstadter returns to a basic theme, and the paranoid style becomes for him an ex-pression of "status politics." Hofstadter's conception of "status politics" juxtaposed to "in-terest politics" provides the framework for the remaining essays. He argues that non-economic issues stemming from anxiety over social status and identity, which the melting pot and social mo-bility heightened, find greater opportunity for political expres-sion in periods when material interests appear less urgent. Hof-stadter concludes that "in depressions or during great bursts of economic reform people vote for what they think are their economic interests, in times of prosperity they feel free to vote Their prejudices." Thus, in Hofstadter's view, the contemporary radical right fits this pattern because their pseudo-conservatism appeals to the old stock white Republicans losing status and immigrant groups. on the rise. For these groups, Goldwater's presidential campaign represented a clear appeal to status politics against the immorality of "something for everybody" interest politics. In the second group of essays Hofstadter applies his conception to other aspects of the modern era. Status politics, rather than rational economic arguments, gave impetus to the Spanish American War and imperialism, as well as the turn of the century anti-trust movement and the recent institutionalizing of anti-trust activity. In the Final essay, Hofstadter details the free silver movemerit and the place of William H. "Coin" Harvey in that movement. Harvey represented popular thought, and Hofstadter's description of the Populist mind was earlier explicit in The Age of Reform. With the essay on Harvey, Hofstadter brings the historian back to the start of the debate, and again underlines the significance of status politics as a tool for understanding American history. He engages in some honest revision, which his critics will find gratifying, but on the whole reaffirms his historical approach. WILLIAM E. AKIN Harpur College, State University of New York pps.314-315 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. 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