Vingtième Siècle. Revue d'histoire - Année 1988 - Volume 18 - Numéro 1 - Pages 29-42Richard Hofstadter (1916-1970). Historiography and politics in the US, Laurent Césari Richard Hofstadter had considerable influence on American historiography and intellectual life. A communist in his youth, he then turned left of the center, and towards the end one of the precursors of neo-conservatism. He wrote several major works, e.g. The American Political Tradition, published in 1948, in which he describes American society as a « democracy in cupidity ». Influenced as much by Marx as by Weber, Freud and Mannheim, Hofstadter always denied the primacy of ideology. He is representative of the generation of American intellectuals of the 1950s. 14 pages Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.