Paranoid Style in American Politics

About the book

The classic and very funny account of the dark side of American politics

'Calm, clear, dispassionate and devastating - and a joy to read' Harper's
'Brilliant and influential ... his evisceration of populism has found a new generation of readers' Guardian

'American political life ... has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds'

How can a country be captured by rumours, surreal conspiracy theories and the most brazen of conmen? The historian Richard Hofstadter asked these questions in the 1960s, amid fears of rising extremism in America. Yet his dazzling dissection of the paranoid worldview - a brew of overheated exaggeration, suspicion and perceived victimhood that can derail entire nations -...