[17][18][19] The sharpest criticism of the book focused on Hofstadter's weakness as a researcher: "he did little or no research into manuscripts, newspapers, archival, or unpublished sources, relying instead primarily on secondary sources augmented by his lively style and wide-ranging interdisciplinary readings, thereby producing well-written arguments based on scattered evidence he found by reading other historians.

"[20] From 1942 to 1946, Hofstadter taught history at the University of Maryland, where he became a close friend of the popular sociologist C. Wright Mills and read extensively in the fields of sociology and psychology, absorbing ideas of Max Weber, Karl Mannheim, Sigmund Freud, and the Frankfurt School.

[21][22] In 1946, Hofstadter joined Columbia University's faculty, and in 1959 he succeeded Allan Nevins as the DeWitt Clinton Professor of American History, where he played a major role in directing Ph.D. dissertations.

Beard and moved to the right, becoming leader of the "consensus historians," a term Hofstadter disapproved of, but that was widely applied to his apparent rejection of the Beardian idea that the sole basis for understanding American history is the fundamental conflict between economic classes.

[25] Making explicit reference to Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Cleveland, Bryan, Wilson, and Hoover, Hofstadter made a statement on the consensus in the American political tradition that has been seen as "ironic".

He said:[26] The fierceness of the political struggles has often been misleading: for the range of vision embraced by the primary contestants in the major parties has always been bounded by the horizons of property and enterprise.

He thought that most of the periods of US history, except the Civil War, could be fully understood only by taking into account an implicit consensus, shared by all groups across the conflict lines.

"[33] Each chapter title illustrated a paradox: Thomas Jefferson is "The Aristocrat as Democrat"; John C. Calhoun is the "Marx of the Master Class"; and Franklin Roosevelt is "The Patrician as Opportunist".

[36] On April 13, 1970, less than a year before his death, Hofstadter wrote historian Bernard Bailyn, expressing concerns about scholarly depictions of recent studies by both of them as "consensus."

Historian Lloyd Gardner wrote that "in later essays Hofstadter specifically ruled out the possibility of a Leninist interpretation of American imperialism.

Privately, Hofstadter said that Frederick Jackson Turner was no longer a useful guide to history, because he was too obsessed with the frontier and his ideas too often had "a pound of falsehood for every few ounces of truth.

"[b] Howe and Finn argue that, rhetorically, Hofstadter's cultural interpretation repeatedly drew upon concepts from literary criticism ("irony," "paradox," "anomaly"), anthropology ("myth," "tradition," "legend," "folklore"), and social psychology ("projection," "unconsciously," "identity," "anxiety," "paranoid").

His goal, they argue, was "destroying certain cherished American traditions and myths derived from his conviction that they provided no trustworthy guide for action in the present.

"[44] C. Vann Woodward wrote that Hofstadter seemed "to have a solid understanding, if not a private affection" for "the odd, the warped, the 'zanies' and the crazies of American life—left, right and middle.

"[47] He remained anti-capitalist, writing, "I hate capitalism and everything that goes with it," but was similarly disillusioned with Stalinism, finding the Soviet Union "essentially undemocratic" and the Communist Party rigid and doctrinaire.

[51] Hofstadter specifically responded to Beard's social-conflict model of U.S. history, which emphasized the struggle among competing economic groups (primarily farmers, Southern slavers, Northern industrialists, and workers) and discounted abstract political rhetoric that rarely translated into action.

Lawrence Cremin wrote that "Hofstadter's central purpose in writing history ... was to reformulate American liberalism so that it might stand more honestly and effectively against attacks from both left and right in a world which had accepted the essential insights of Darwin, Marx, and Freud.

"[56] Moreover, he was "extremely critical of student tactics, believing that they were based on irrational romantic ideas, rather than sensible plans for achievable change, that they undermined the unique status of the university, as an institutional bastion of free thought, and that they were bound to provoke a political reaction from the right.

"[57] Coates argues that his career saw a steady move from left to right, and that his 1968 Columbia commencement address "represented the completion of his conversion to conservatism".

He even employed one, Mike Wallace, to collaborate with him on American Violence: A Documentary History (1970); Hofstadter student Eric Foner said the book "utterly contradicted the consensus vision of a nation placidly evolving without serious disagreements.

[61] Hofstadter directed more than 100 finished doctoral dissertations but gave his graduate students only cursory attention; he believed this academic latitude enabled them to find their own models of history.