# Anti-Intellectualism in American Life Richard Hofstadter's 1964 Pulitzer-winning study of the recurring American hostility toward intellect and the people who live by it. Written in McCarthyism's wake, the book traces anti-intellectualism through four channels: **evangelical religion** (heart over head, the revivalist preacher against the learned clergy), **democratic politics** (the cult of the common man against the expert), **business culture** (the self-made practical man against the egghead), and **education** itself (schooling as life-adjustment rather than cultivation of mind). ## The Argument Anti-intellectualism is not an import or an aberration; it is woven into the country's egalitarian and practical-minded foundations. The same forces that democratized religion, politics, and opportunity also bred suspicion of cultivated intelligence as elitist, effeminate, and subversive. Hofstadter distinguishes intelligence (instrumental, respected) from intellect (critical, creative, disinterested — perpetually distrusted). The ISBN above is the standard Vintage paperback; the 1963 first edition predates the ISBN system. ## RWKB Relevance Ur-text for the vault's [[Anti-Intellectualism]] concept and the deep background to the modern war on expertise — from climate denial through COVID through "do your own research." Hofstadter's evangelical and populist channels map directly onto the Christian-nationalist and MAGA clusters; companion to his *Paranoid Style* essays.