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eelsmac's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.25
I'm not going to lie, this is a bit dense and dry. Hofstadter does somewhat rely on a certain degree of prior knowledge about US History, public administration/policy, and just the functioning of different public sectors and communities in the US. This is a book that I would argue is worth the slog through the slow, painstakingly presentation and analysis of evidence, because tome that it is, it does provide meaningful insight and introspection that is missing in many thorough histories of the US.
The sizeable section on education as a standalone section of the book should be required reading for anyone interested in education, working in education, running for school board, or just being *that community member that speaks at every community forum to pitch unhinged and unrealistic policies. What's perhaps a bit disturbing is that despite the fact that this book was published 61 years ago, much of the section on education still has tremendous relevance to contemporary cross currents in k-12 education philosophy and policy. I certainly wish I had read it prior to starting a career in education, it would have given me a much more clear eyed approach to developing instructional strategies and classroom management as well as navigating different building and district policy implementations and professional development initiatives.
The section on religiosity/evangelical Christianity was fascinating. Having read some discourse about the rise of evangelicalism in the conservative political landscape, white Christian nationalism, and just different philosophical approaches to and applications of Christian thought, I came into this book already somewhat aware of the ways in which evangelicalism has entwined with the broader culture, nonetheless this felt a bit like a "red pill". Hofstadter is meticulous at dissecting the myriad ways that evangelical traditions developed in the US quite to the contrary of European counterparts and in ways that underpin anti-intellectualism in American culture historically and currently. Again, it's striking how relevant this text still is despite its age.
The section about different presidential politics probably could have been edited down, it was a bit boring and I spaced out a lot in that section. But then it also presents presidential administrations through a radically different lens than is typical in historical discourse and that, I think, does serve to add value to the way that Hofstadter intricately explores the concept of anti-intellectualism throughout different historical eras and applications in public life.
The sizeable section on education as a standalone section of the book should be required reading for anyone interested in education, working in education, running for school board, or just being *that community member that speaks at every community forum to pitch unhinged and unrealistic policies. What's perhaps a bit disturbing is that despite the fact that this book was published 61 years ago, much of the section on education still has tremendous relevance to contemporary cross currents in k-12 education philosophy and policy. I certainly wish I had read it prior to starting a career in education, it would have given me a much more clear eyed approach to developing instructional strategies and classroom management as well as navigating different building and district policy implementations and professional development initiatives.
The section on religiosity/evangelical Christianity was fascinating. Having read some discourse about the rise of evangelicalism in the conservative political landscape, white Christian nationalism, and just different philosophical approaches to and applications of Christian thought, I came into this book already somewhat aware of the ways in which evangelicalism has entwined with the broader culture, nonetheless this felt a bit like a "red pill". Hofstadter is meticulous at dissecting the myriad ways that evangelical traditions developed in the US quite to the contrary of European counterparts and in ways that underpin anti-intellectualism in American culture historically and currently. Again, it's striking how relevant this text still is despite its age.
The section about different presidential politics probably could have been edited down, it was a bit boring and I spaced out a lot in that section. But then it also presents presidential administrations through a radically different lens than is typical in historical discourse and that, I think, does serve to add value to the way that Hofstadter intricately explores the concept of anti-intellectualism throughout different historical eras and applications in public life.
leelootay's review against another edition
The language and information are so dense that I had to slow down to absorb each chapter well enough to continue. I did learn about the influence of power hungry village and town leaders who forced clergy to bend their message to strict moral codes that served the leaders rather than the spiritual lives of citizens.
I was also reminded that no
Matter where we are in the history of the country, there is always a fight for power and the desire to tell others how to live.
Sometimes we're lucky and get leaders who genuinely care about the country and others who only care about themselves. Don't need a history lessons to tell me how that came about.
I was also reminded that no
Matter where we are in the history of the country, there is always a fight for power and the desire to tell others how to live.
Sometimes we're lucky and get leaders who genuinely care about the country and others who only care about themselves. Don't need a history lessons to tell me how that came about.
aarongertler's review against another edition
5.0
I wrote a semi-review of this book in an application to the New York Times. They didn't like it enough to hire me, but I still like it enough to publish.
If you don't read much history from more than 50 years ago, I really recommend it. Sometimes, the past is a different country; sometimes, it's a different planet. A few quotes that stood out to me:
From an Eisenhower donor, questioned by a Senator in advance of his appointment to be the Ambassador to Ceylon:
Do you know who the Prime Minister of India is?
"Yes, but I can t pronounce his name."
Do you know who the Prime Minister of Ceylon is?
"His name is unfamiliar now, I cannot call it off."
On the profession of teaching in early America:
A Delaware minister observed, around 1725, that "when a ship arrives in the river, it is a common expression with those who stand in need of an instructor for their children, let us go and buy a school master!" In 1776 the Maryland Journal advertised that a ship had just arrived at Baltimore from Belfast and Cork, and enumerated among its products for sale "various Irish commodities, among which are school masters, beef, pork, and potatoes." It was about the same time that the Connecticut press printed an advertisement offering a reward for a runaway described as "a school-master, of a pale complexion, with short hair. He has the itch very bad, and sore legs." Disabled men were frequently turned into schoolteachers for lack of anything better to do with them.
If you don't read much history from more than 50 years ago, I really recommend it. Sometimes, the past is a different country; sometimes, it's a different planet. A few quotes that stood out to me:
From an Eisenhower donor, questioned by a Senator in advance of his appointment to be the Ambassador to Ceylon:
Do you know who the Prime Minister of India is?
"Yes, but I can t pronounce his name."
Do you know who the Prime Minister of Ceylon is?
"His name is unfamiliar now, I cannot call it off."
On the profession of teaching in early America:
A Delaware minister observed, around 1725, that "when a ship arrives in the river, it is a common expression with those who stand in need of an instructor for their children, let us go and buy a school master!" In 1776 the Maryland Journal advertised that a ship had just arrived at Baltimore from Belfast and Cork, and enumerated among its products for sale "various Irish commodities, among which are school masters, beef, pork, and potatoes." It was about the same time that the Connecticut press printed an advertisement offering a reward for a runaway described as "a school-master, of a pale complexion, with short hair. He has the itch very bad, and sore legs." Disabled men were frequently turned into schoolteachers for lack of anything better to do with them.
scott_op_ks's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
Very thorough. Obviously dated given the year it was published. I have no doubt the author would have ever guessed at the time we’d get Dubya and Trump. Now, if you read a book some red hat incel will call you a
“pedo.”
I see no hope for the pendulum to swing back the other way. The internet, for the most part, has been a mistake. Stupidity won.
“pedo.”
I see no hope for the pendulum to swing back the other way. The internet, for the most part, has been a mistake. Stupidity won.
benthewriter's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
slow-paced
3.0
This book gives a good overview of the tradition of anti-intellectualism in the United States, from the church, to the federal government, to the academy, and the business world, but with a rather glaring omission, namely a more thoroughgoing analysis of the mutual reinforcement of anti-intellectualism and systemic racism, including the genocide of Native Americans, slavery, and the Jim Crow era. This is compounded by a deep bench of citations of intellectuals throughout the centuries that seems to be entirely white. This book was published in the middle of the Civil Rights Era, so there is really no excuse for this.
That said, the book is more feminist than I expected from something written by a guy in 1963, so at least there's that.
Hofstadter excellently skewers the anti-intellectual underpinnings of reactionary right-wing politics, as well as that found in Tankieism, but there is an ironic reactionary undercurrent in his own arguments that leads me to believe he would be a big Chicago Principles guy were he alive today. He does not fully espouse the Radical Centrism of Classical Liberals™ today, but he shares some of their authoritarian sentiments.
In his introduction he states that this book's genesis lay in unresolved issues that arose from a series of talks he gave and papers he wrote, but in the end the dichotomies facing the intellectual existing within a capitalist milieu remain unresolved in a state of negative dialectics. Which is understandable. There can be no blueprint for intellectualism in a hierarchical world.
That said, the book is more feminist than I expected from something written by a guy in 1963, so at least there's that.
Hofstadter excellently skewers the anti-intellectual underpinnings of reactionary right-wing politics, as well as that found in Tankieism, but there is an ironic reactionary undercurrent in his own arguments that leads me to believe he would be a big Chicago Principles guy were he alive today. He does not fully espouse the Radical Centrism of Classical Liberals™ today, but he shares some of their authoritarian sentiments.
In his introduction he states that this book's genesis lay in unresolved issues that arose from a series of talks he gave and papers he wrote, but in the end the dichotomies facing the intellectual existing within a capitalist milieu remain unresolved in a state of negative dialectics. Which is understandable. There can be no blueprint for intellectualism in a hierarchical world.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racial slurs
sageofthe6pack's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
might’ve read this at a bad time, as its primary concerns feel wholly unimportant right now. parts are interesting, other parts are a slog. i agree with the overarching premise, but am not inclined to call this a great book.
alexisrt's review against another edition
5.0
After 50 years, Richard Hofstadter’s analysis of anti-intellectualism in America is not just a historical curiosity; it’s a vital work that continues to inform modern thought and policy. When we see attacks on the liberal arts, on the purpose of the university, on science, on history courses in high school that do not function as mere patriotic indoctrination, when we idealize Bill Gates the college dropout, we see that tendency in full flower today. Though Hofstadter’s history stops in the early 1960s—at a culturally critical break point—if we want to understand the roots of modern Know-Nothingism, we could do far, far worse than to revisit this book. It is a book we should know, and not only know of. It is not a light read, but Hofstadter maintains a clear tone. He does not dumb down or make concessions, but neither does he stoop to pedantic jargon or pretentious pseudo-academic language.
That said, the book is 50 years old, and as such, it’s worth assessing it critically in light of the intervening decades. To do so is not to devalue it, but to enable it to inform our current perspectives. The most striking note is that this is almost entirely the history of the white male. This is almost inevitable to some degree, given the scope, though the debates between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, as an example, also exist within the same tradition. One particularly curious limitation is that it’s the history—and in the religion section, explicitly so–of the Christian white male. The word “Jew” is not mentioned, even when discussing opposition to Louis Brandeis. The Founding Fathers are discussed with a degree of adulation that would not be seen in a comparably liberal text today; the dismissal of accusations against Jefferson is striking, given what we now know to be true. The link between the feminization of the US teaching profession and its lack of prestige or respect is well noted and continues to be, but would probably have been expressed differently today.
The section on education raises the most questions for me. It is in this sector that the tensions between democracy and elitism, as Hofstadter defines them, are most pronounced in contemporary America. The primary weakness of the book, such as it is, is that it takes the benefits of the democratic tendency to be well taught and therefore self evident, and so the benefits of the elite are those that are highlighted. Although both conservative suspicion of intellect and what he sees as the progressive bigotry of low expectations—attacking the viewpoint prevalent in the early 20th century that a large proportion of children were not educable—he does not fully explore the need for a more democratic, less tiered system in the US, despite acknowledging the barriers of poverty and racial prejudice. At the same time, examining the system today, I can imagine Hofstadter railing against it and continuing his dual pronged attack: while we talk now of rigor and high expectations, we continue to prioritize intelligence over intellect, on both sides of the political spectrum. At the time of writing, the US was moving into a “mass preparatory” age, and we have yet to learn how to do it well.
Despite its age, however, far too much of the book feels immediate and fresh when read today. Adlai Stevenson is nothing more than a figure in a textbook to me, but the parallels came fast and thick: contemporary evangelical Christianity would have flowed easily from the discussions on early American religion; our continued belief that success in business, being a practical matter, is more preparation for public office than theoretical knowledge acquired as a specialist; our lack of support for science and art that we do not deem to be practical. Much has changed since 1964, but the tendencies Hofstadter describes so well have not.
That said, the book is 50 years old, and as such, it’s worth assessing it critically in light of the intervening decades. To do so is not to devalue it, but to enable it to inform our current perspectives. The most striking note is that this is almost entirely the history of the white male. This is almost inevitable to some degree, given the scope, though the debates between W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington, as an example, also exist within the same tradition. One particularly curious limitation is that it’s the history—and in the religion section, explicitly so–of the Christian white male. The word “Jew” is not mentioned, even when discussing opposition to Louis Brandeis. The Founding Fathers are discussed with a degree of adulation that would not be seen in a comparably liberal text today; the dismissal of accusations against Jefferson is striking, given what we now know to be true. The link between the feminization of the US teaching profession and its lack of prestige or respect is well noted and continues to be, but would probably have been expressed differently today.
The section on education raises the most questions for me. It is in this sector that the tensions between democracy and elitism, as Hofstadter defines them, are most pronounced in contemporary America. The primary weakness of the book, such as it is, is that it takes the benefits of the democratic tendency to be well taught and therefore self evident, and so the benefits of the elite are those that are highlighted. Although both conservative suspicion of intellect and what he sees as the progressive bigotry of low expectations—attacking the viewpoint prevalent in the early 20th century that a large proportion of children were not educable—he does not fully explore the need for a more democratic, less tiered system in the US, despite acknowledging the barriers of poverty and racial prejudice. At the same time, examining the system today, I can imagine Hofstadter railing against it and continuing his dual pronged attack: while we talk now of rigor and high expectations, we continue to prioritize intelligence over intellect, on both sides of the political spectrum. At the time of writing, the US was moving into a “mass preparatory” age, and we have yet to learn how to do it well.
Despite its age, however, far too much of the book feels immediate and fresh when read today. Adlai Stevenson is nothing more than a figure in a textbook to me, but the parallels came fast and thick: contemporary evangelical Christianity would have flowed easily from the discussions on early American religion; our continued belief that success in business, being a practical matter, is more preparation for public office than theoretical knowledge acquired as a specialist; our lack of support for science and art that we do not deem to be practical. Much has changed since 1964, but the tendencies Hofstadter describes so well have not.
tittypete's review against another edition
3.0
Listened to this one while playing Borderlands 3. Evangelicals are anti-reason because if you think critically, you can easily poke all kinds of holes in their doctrines. Also a lot of resentment came out of the braintrust that thought up the New Deal. America has a self-made man mythos that it reveres and this flies in the face of genius, learnedness or expertise. Farmers didn’t like smart guys trying to figure out better ways to farm. Schools meant taxes. Schools meant kids learning stuff that wouldn’t help them work or farm. Then the author yammers on for 5 hours about educational theory.