The classic and very funny account of the dark side of American politicsNCalm, clear, dispassionate and devastating O and a joy to readO Harper'sNBrilliant and influential A his evisceration of populism has found a new generation of readersO Guardian NAmerican political life A has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry mindsOHow can a country be captured by rumours, surreal conspiracy theories and the most brazen of conmen? The historian Richard Hofstadter asked these questions in the 1960s, amid fears of rising extremism in America. Yet his dazzling dissection of the paranoid worldview O a brew of overheated exaggeration, suspicion and perceived victimhood that can derail entire nations O is a lesson for the ages in the seductive politics of the irrational.In an era where we ourselves feel assailed by endless paranoid public statements it is comforting to read HofstadterOs incisive refusal to see these as something new. In his discussion of famous and obscure untruths, some of which have profoundly impacted American domestic and foreign policy, he provides the antidote for the present day.NThe Paranoid Style in American PoliticsO was first published as an essay in HarperOs Magazine in late 1964 and has been argued over ever since.