Talk:Richard Hofstadter

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I would like to edit this sentence from the "Biography" section for clarity, but what does it mean? "In The Idea of a Party System, Hofstadter described the beginning of the first party system in America as having been driven by an irrational fear that one of the two major parties hoped to destroy the republic." DSatz 17:34, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

It means that people like Washington and Jefferson were very much afraid of political parties as basically evil or dangerous. Hofstadter shows how the election of 1800 helped reduce this fear and establish the idea that two parties were good and should rotate. Rjensen 19:00, 18 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Social Darwinism Publication Dates

Here's why I changed the dates regarding Hofstadter's Social Darwinism: I found that Dissertation Abstracts lists the date of Hofstadter's dissertation as 1945. The two academic libraries I've checked, as well as Fetchbook, show that it was first published in 1955. And if he didn't complete the diss until 1945, joining the faculty of Columbia in 1946 would not be "two years later" as the article said. --RedJ 17 16:40, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

• • the 1955 edition was a reprint. The U California library says:

Title Social darwinism in American thought, 1860-1915, by Richard Hofstader. Publisher Philadephia, University of Pennsylvania Press 1944. Rjensen 23:09, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Thanks RJensen, I just now found that the UPenn publication was reviewed by Morton White in 1945. I still don't understand why Dissertation Abstracts lists 1945 as his degree date. Thanks for making the correction. --RedJ 17 01:47, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Subtle Pro-Capitalist Bias?

I am unfamiliar with this gentleman's work, only visiting this page because of a casual mention of him in an article critical Wikipedia. However, reading this page, I can't help but feel that it is written in a fashion to subtly mock the man's ideas. For instance:

Beard's Civil War was a transfer of political power from Southern plantation elite to Northeastern capitalists. Slavery was not especially important as a cause.

Also:

Like his other books it was light on original research, for he did rarely worked in archives or newspaper files, preferring to read and sythesize secondary sources.

And:

Later critics undercut his thesis, showing that very few businessmen were Social Darwinists and instead took very different positions in favor of philanthropy, for example.

Pardon me if all of these items are factually accurate, and I'm just reading the derision in to it. The last item actually contains a link to a note which appears to be presently non-existent, but is probably meant to refer to a reference which justifies the statement. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by OldMiner (talk • contribs) .

Hofstadter was fond of irony, so he would enjoy this little debate. But H's weaknesses are not really in dispute. The Brown book and Foner article covers all the points in question (also Bannister on Social Darwinism). (Brown is on the right and Foner is on the left, by the way.) Hofstadter's greatest weakness is he did very little research into sources and relied heavily on secondary sources. He overcame this in his best book The Progressive Historians where he DID read the sources closely. Rjensen 11:59, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much a matter of whether Hofstadter's weaknesses are "in dispute"; you're clearly more knowledgeable about the topic than I, so I'll take your word for it. The concern that the above author raised, and that I attempted to address in my edit, was the tone of the language and taking a point of view. The way things like this are often handled on Wikipedia is to create a "Criticism" subsection, in which the criticisms of Hofstadter (reliance on secondary sources, misstatements about Social Darwinism, etc) are detailed, with citations. Would you be willing to give this a shot, since you're up on the topic? MastCell 17:31, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Summaries

Hello - Rjensen, if you're making significant content changes to the article, could you please leave a more detailed edit summary than "tweaks" or "details"? It will help everyone who works on the article. Thanks. MastCell 22:27, 13 October 2006 (UTC)