The American Political Tradition

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It is a 1948 book by Richard Hofstadter, an account of the ideology of previous Presidents of the United States and other political figures. Hofstadter’s introduction argues that the major political traditions in the United States, despite contentious battles, have all “shared a belief in the rights of property, the philosophy of economic individualism, the value of competition … [T]hey have accepted the economic virtues of a capitalist culture as necessary qualities of man”.