Book Review: United States: Anti-Intellectualism in American Life
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900122 |
| Date | 01 March 1964 |
| Author | Ramsay Cook |
| Published date | 01 March 1964 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
98
INTENATIONAL
JOURNAL
"participation"
in
the
war.
The
book
would
have
been
improved
by a
trip
to
the
Star's
Bureau
of Accuracy.
Nevertheless,
the
book
is
filled
with
interesting
information
about
the
Star
and
the
Toronto
newspaper
world in
general.
The
Star's
enormously
popular
success no
doubt reflected
Atikinson's
accurate
mea-
surement
of
the
requirements
of
a
"people's
paper"-a
fact
which
may
also explain
why
the
paper
has
probably never
had
a
national
influence
commensurate with
its
circulation.
To
the
Star
the
failure
of
the
Home
Bank,
the
Canadian
tour
of
the
Prince
of
Wales,
and
the
North
American
junket
of
Lloyd George
in
1923
were
all
more newsworthy
than
the
Imperial
Conference-a
judgement
which
history
will
hardly
confirm.
While
there
Is
not
much
about
"Holy
Joe"
Atkinson's
political
ideas
in
the
book,
it
does
make
clear
that
the
Star
publisher
was
an
urban
social
reformer
of
somewhat
advanced
views.
Like his
Presbyterian
friend,
Mackenzie
King,
the
Methodist
Atkinson
skilfully managed
to
combine
support
for
progressive
social
measures with
a
more
than
normal
worldly
success.
And
despite
his
repeated
demands
for
social
reforms
Atkinson
never
seems
to
have
lost
patience
with
Mackenzie
King's
snail-like
progress towards
the welfare
state.
But
then
Atkinson
himself
once
remarked
that
he
learned
his
finance
from
Senator
George
Cox,
his
salesmanship from
Timothy
Eaton
and
his
politics
from
Sir
William
Mulock-not
a
very
radical trio
of
schoolmasters.
University
of
Toronto
RAMmAY
COOK
United
States
ANn-INTmwLEcTuALIm
niN
AmEvRscAR
Ln.
By
Richard
Hofstadter.
1963.
(New
York:
Alfred
A.
Knopf. Toronto: Random
House.
ix,
434
pp.
$8.75)
Richard
Hofstadter's
exciting
new
book
is
a
striking tribute to the
quality
of
contemporary
American
scholarship.
As
he
says
himself,
it
could
never have
been
written
without
the
enormous
range
of
studies
of
nearly
every
facet
of
American
life
to which
his
footnotes
bear
witness.
This,
of course,
does
not
detract
from
Hofstadter's
own
superb
achievement,
for
he
has
applied
his
exceptionally
creative
mind
and
striking
literary
abilities
to
a
mass
of
often amorphous
material
and
the result
is
a
book
which
is
scholarly,
entertaining,
and
above
all,
sparkling
with
penetrating
insights
and
provocative
ideas.
The
book
is
not
really
a
history
of
"anti-intellectualism"
but
rather
what
the author
calls
"a
personal
book,
whose
factual
details
are
organized and
dominated
by
my
views."
The
organization
takes
the
form
of
four
essays
dealing
with
religion,
politics,
business
and
educa-
tion,
all
of which,
he
argues
effectively,
have contributed
to
the
anti-
Intellectual tone
which
is
one
feature
of
American
life.
(Hofstadter
is
careful
to point
out
that
while
"anti-intellectualism"
is
a
major
theme
In
American
culture
it
is
not
the
only
or
even
the
dominant
one-
American
history
cannot
be
reduced
to
"a
running
battle
between
the
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