Richard Hofstadter was born 6 August 1916 in Buffalo, New York, the elder of two sons of Emil A. and Katherine Hill Hofstadter. His father was a Jewish immigrant whose family had fled from anti-Semitism in Poland in 1899, while his mother's family had left Germany in the mid 1800s; young Richard was baptized in the Lutheran Church. He attended local public schools and then the University of Buffalo, where he earned a bachelor of arts in 1937 and was named a member of Phi Beta Kappa. After completing his degree requirements at Buffalo in the spring of 1936 (his official graduation was the following winter) he and his fiancée, Felice Swados, a writer, editor, and the sister of novelist Harvey Swados, moved to New York City, where they married. He began study at New York University Law School in the fall of 1936, but found that pursuit unappealing and decided to...