An Outer-Directed Historian

An Outer-Directed Historian The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R., by Richard Hofstadter. 348 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $4.50

The tone of The Age of Reform is fashionably value-free. No conceptual apparatus rears its ugly head, and from beginning to end hardly a term is defined. An assumption, it would seem, wouldn’t melt in Professor Hofstadter’s mouth. Indeed, he goes out of his way in a footnote at one of the crucial points of his study to say: “I should perhaps add that my own comments in this area [the values of Progressivism and the New Deal] are not intended to be more than descriptive, for there are large questions of political ethics that I too have not attempted to answer.”

FS

About the Author

Frank S. Meyer

Frank S. Meyer was a senior editor of National Review.

Featured Tags

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

An Outer-Directed Historian The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R., by Richard Hofstadter. 348 pp. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. $4.50

The tone of The Age of Reform is fashionably value-free. No conceptual apparatus rears its ugly head, and from beginning to end hardly a term is defined. An assumption, it would seem, wouldn’t melt in Professor Hofstadter’s mouth. Indeed, he goes out of his way in a footnote at one of the crucial points of his study to say: “I should perhaps add that my own comments in this area [the values of Progressivism and the New Deal] are not intended to be more than descriptive, for there are large questions of political ethics that I too have not attempted to answer.”