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The Age of Reform, by Richard Hofstadter
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This book is a landmark in American political thought. It examines the passion for progress and reform that colored the entire period from 1890 to 1940 -- with startling and stimulating results. it searches out the moral and emotional motives of the reformers the myths and dreams in which they believed, and the realities with which they had to compromise.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
- Sales Rank: #188070 in Books
- Brand: Hofstadter, Richard
- Published on: 1960-02-12
- Released on: 1960-02-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.18" h x .76" w x 4.77" l, .48 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 352 pages
Review
"Professor Hofstadter has written a superb book ... The Age of Reform entitles Hofstadter to rank with C. Vann Woodward as a master of creative synthesis, as an interpreter of the past who can add to cold data an emphatic insight that transforms history from a book of the dead into a chronicle of life."-- American Political Science Review
From the Inside Flap
This book is a landmark in American political thought. It examines the passion for progress and reform that colored the entire period from 1890 to 1940 -- with startling and stimulating results. it searches out the moral and emotional motives of the reformers the myths and dreams in which they believed, and the realities with which they had to compromise.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.
From the Back Cover
"Professor Hofstadter has written a superb book ... The Age of Reform entitles Hofstadter to rank with C. Vann Woodward as a master of creative synthesis, as an interpreter of the past who can add to cold data an emphatic insight that transforms history from a book of the dead into a chronicle of life."-- American Political Science Review
Most helpful customer reviews
65 of 69 people found the following review helpful.
An indispensable and enduring work
By Tyler Smith
It's not every book that can change one's thinking about a political movement and a period in history, but Hofstadter's book did just that for me when I first read it many years ago. It's an incisive critique of the populist and progressive movements that sprang up in the last quarter of the 19th century and exerted strong influence on American politics until the onset of World War I. But Hofstadter's great achievement is that he sets both these movements in historical perspective, showing us that no movement flowers without roots.
Hofstadter is at his best in revealing that the populist movement played -- and preyed -- on the longing of Americans for a pastoral, agrarian past that was ironically little more than myth by the end of Reconstruction. In an increasingly industrial, urban America, the populists were able to set themselves up as downtrodden victims of various villians, chief among them the railroads and the banks.
Yet Hofstadter convincingly argues that the farmers of the West were eager to become businessmen in the boom years following the Civil War, when land and capital were cheap. It was not until they were battered by the economic slumps that are an inevitable part of a market economy that the agrarian movement began demanding government intervention to reign in capital and portraying agriculture as especially worthy of special attention.
The populist's appeal to the little man, dwarfed by powers beyond his control, played well in some segments of the U.S., but Hofstadter portrays a darker side of populism, exposing its anti-foreign and anti-Semitic leanings. Reading about the populist's railings against foreigners and their dark hints of conspiracy by vast economic and political powers, I heard echoes of the speeches of Pat Buchanan.
As for the progressives, the urban reformers who overlapped to some extent with the populists, Hofstadter cogently points out that this middle class movement was in large part a reaction to the growing influence of immigrants in large American cities. The middle class, he argues, was feeling squeezed between the waves of immigrants, who were increasingly catered to by machine politicians, and the new and enormously rich industrial class. The progressive movement was an attempt to wrest back some measure of political strength by undercutting the power of the bosses with "good government" and to reign in the economic clout of the industrialists through reform.
This is required reading for the student of American history. We have produced few historians who match the stature and achievement of Hofstadter, and this book is one of his best.
47 of 60 people found the following review helpful.
Hofstadter: Crusader Against the Populists
By Jeffrey Leach
Historians still consider the late Richard Hofstadter one of the great American historians of the 20th century. His voluminous output when he worked as a professor at Columbia continues to draw readers and researchers both inside and outside of academia. "The Age of Reform" is Hofstadter's analysis of Populism and Progressivism in American history, which the author defines as a period running roughly from 1890 to 1940. This historical treatment won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1956, although it is difficult at times to see why. If we accept the idea that historians should always strive to lift themselves above their own biases and personal backgrounds, we must conclude that Richard Hofstadter was little more than a prejudiced city dweller who sought to tar American rural movements with an overarching label of anti-Semitism. Fortunately, new work concerning the Populists is available, work that patently refutes many of this author's scurrilous claims.
The author claims that Populism sought to reaffirm the American agrarian lifestyle in an age of increasing industrialization and urbanization. He attacks what he refers to as the "agrarian myth," or the idea that the backbone of American society was the benevolent, hard working farmer; an idea once advocated by none other than Thomas Jefferson. Hofstadter scoffs at the Jeffersonian idea of democratic virtues imbued by working with the soil, going so far as to conclude that Populism, which was a political movement by farmers and their associates to challenge what they saw as hegemonic behavior directed against rural areas by the cities and governmental organs, was deeply and irrevocably devoted to anti-Semitism in its most virulent strains. "The Age of Reform" cites Populist leaders Mary Lease and Ignatius Donnelly as two of the more strident proponents of rural anti-Jewish discontent.
While it is obvious that there was an element of anti-Semitism swirling through parts of the Populist movement, this animosity in no way formed the foundation of rural discontent. Farmers' concerns encompassed a host of disturbing issues, including railroads, the banking industry, corruption in politics, and moral values. Hofstadter commits a grave error in claiming that racial motives constituted the sublime principle for the millions of farmers who harbored a beef with the political system. Author Peter Novick, in his superb treatment of American historians, unearthed a letter proving that Hofstadter admitted to greatly exaggerating his claims about anti-Semitism among America's rural population. If one takes this claim to its logical, and disturbing, conclusion, the author of "The Age of Reform" essentially misrepresented his evidence in order to support a theory. That this is an egregious crime worthy of professional exile has had little effect on the endless accolades accorded Richard Hofstadter over the years. If lesser mortals were to commit such an indiscretion, they would find themselves drummed out of the discipline with great haste.
The second part of this book concerns Progressivism. According to Hofstadter, the concern of the progressives didn't involve a disbelief in the system of American society and government, but rather their position in a world increasingly fraught with the tectonic changes of industrialism. Specifically, Progressive initiatives involved status, as diverse sections of the populace attempted to find a new role in a changing country. As an example, the author refers to the clergy as one of these classes threatened with change. In an increasingly secularized culture, and one in which social scientists and the industrialists rose to undreamt of heights in social influence, those who worked for the churches lost considerable clout. Those men of the cloth wise to the changes in America embraced the reform minded social gospel in order to regain influence over the masses. In short, the changes in American society during the turn of the century led to a restructuring among all classes, not merely the working class or farmers. When a response to industrialism became necessary, everybody responded to it in some manner in an attempt to preserve their social station.
In a way, I understand Hofstadter's concern about the dangers of mass political movements. Look at the author's ethnic background; he was a Jewish-American who worked closely with other Jewish-American scholars in post-WWII America. What Jew wouldn't look for the seeds of an anti-Semitic basis in any political movements with Hitler's final solution still looming large in the popular mind? Populism in its expressions never resembled the scenes in "Triumph of the Will," but even a slender reed of anti-Jewish thought amongst the few was enough to set off alarm bells in the minds of Hofstadter, Daniel Bell, and others. "The Age of Reform" contributes an explanation of one facet of American Populism, but fails to convince me that anti-Jewish sentiment was the driving force of the movement. Hofstadter and company saw brown shirts instead of bib overalls, Nordic warriors instead of the Joads.
All is not lost with Richard Hofstadter, as there is plenty here and in his other works that sparkle with his easy prose style and all-encompassing eye for detail. One of the things I love about this author is how he discusses these obscure writings from various historical figures. In "The Age of Reform," Hofstadter discusses in some depth Ignatius Donnelly's apocalyptic novel "Caesar's Column," a discussion that made me instantly want to procure a copy. His observations on such literary obscurities are always a lot of fun, inspiring the reader to investigate these topics further. In short, when one reads Hofstadter, don't always take his word as gospel just because historians continue to adore him. "The Age of Reform" is an important work on Populism and Progressivism, but it certainly isn't the final analysis on these fascinating subjects.
25 of 30 people found the following review helpful.
FROM RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM TO STATE WELFARE
By A Customer
Richard Hosstadter was one of our most profound social commentators and it will be a long while before his equal comes along. In this book he highlights the rather surprising fact that Conservatives were the first to back the Progressive idea that replaced Populism. The Progressive mentality, with roots in the Protestant ethic felt the individual was responsible for improvement of "everything." It was an idea congenial to Teddy Roosevelt, who took it and ran with it, and it reached its culmination in Woodrow Wilson. As Hofstadter shows, Wilson led us into WWI with the idea that it was our responsibility to save civilization, rather than our self interested need to survive intact ourselves in a congenial economic milieu which would not have been likely if the Central Powers had won the war. The devastation and human wreckage wrought by the war brought home to Americans what they mistakenly considered the price of idealism (rather than the price of survival) and turned them toward a reaction that killed Progressivism. One result was the Flapper Era, reaction characteristic of general Eurphoria, undoubtedly sustained by prosperity. Hofstadter makes a remarkable case that explains how we got Prohibition and that, remarkably, it was tolerated by that era, He traces its development to a strange conjunction between a Progressive holdover, reaction against city loose morals and nativism. (Perhaps true, at least he makes a good case for the develpment of what is otherwise an inexplicable contradiction.) When the bubble busted in 1929 with the market crash followed by world depression, the stage had been set for acceptance of state reponsibility for human welfare, with roots going back rather surprisingly to Conservatives who first made a congenial environment for Progressive ideas on the notion that they were preserving individualism. This, of course, is ironic, since it was the Conservatives who had a hissie over the New Deal and FDR. Hofstadter also points out that major swings of national policy depend upon moods of the people at the time. Cycles exist. Unfortunately, he doesn't provide a formula for creating, sustaining of killing moods, probably because no one can. In any case he gives us hope that the mood we hate will pass away; for example PC which currently seems to threaten our basic notion of freedom will fly out the window someday, perhaps having served a good purpose for all of its arrogant intolerance of free discussion and conduct, especially in our colleges and universities. A derned good book to read in installments as I do, in a hot tub in the morning while I try to get my weary bones articulating. To balance Hofstadter try Albro Martin to whom Hofstadter's idea of acceptance of such things as government regulation of railroads (starting with the Hepburn Act) was anathema and actually came close to destroying them. They agree that TR's trustbusting was cosmetic, with Hofstadter seeing some good in it (the Northern Securites Case being the classic example to show that government was at least watching) and Martin pointing out that the severance of the Burlington, Northern Pacific and Great Northern from a trust status was replaced by what amounted to the same thing. It was so secretly done that even the employees of the combination didn't recognize the interlocking board control until 1972. As we know it is now fully accepted as the Bulington Northern Santa Fe. And what has this to do with The Age of Reform? Read the book and draw your own conclusions. Hofstadter admits that in the final analysis the Big Men that reform reacted against were running the show behind the scenes most of the time anyhow when the chips were down. Of course this is not a book for those who are into Harlequin Romances or even baseball unless you're George Will. Glenn G. Boyer
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