> Hi, I'm a lurker and a PhD student in History at ___.... You should
> check out [Eric Foner]'s "Who owns history?" (Hill and Wang, I
> think). There's an essay about Hofstadter in there that analyzes why
> it's unfair to lump him with the other major consensus historians
> like Commager, Nevins, etc. Unlike those guys, Hofstadter's stuff
> isn't celebratory at all.
When I read _The American Political Tradition_ I didn't know how Hofstadter lined up with other historians or even that there was a "consensus" school of American history. What impressed me about the book was the irony, which seemed to me quite bitter in many passages, with which he described the compromises and manoeuverings of his subjects. I remember a passage, maybe even a single sentence, where he mentions Jefferson's *private* hope for universal sufferage along with his authorship of the Virginia law restricting the franchise to those with more than 50 acres of land. And his discussion of the aristocratic contempt of many of the founders was more striking than stuff I'd read in, for example, Zinn. On finishing the book, I thought the American political tradition seemed to be a history of feckless compromise on the part of men who lacked intelligence, ethics, or both.
So maybe I'm odd, but there it is.
smg