Populist Persuasion

Michael Kazin is Professor of History at Georgetown University and coeditor of Dissent. His many books include War Against War, American Dreamers, and A Godly Hero.

A perceptive and passionately liberal book. Beginning with the antislavery crusade of the 1840s, Kazin skillfully surveys more than a century of mass protests, using imagery and symbolism as his guides.(New York times) Kazin shows populism's canny ability to mix homespun rhetoric and political savvy. The book explains something very important in American life with scrupulous fairness and a keen eye for the humanizing detail. It is as good a road map as we have to the politics of the people who work hard and play by the rules.(Wall Street Journal) The important questions raised by the success of the populist right in the United States are illuminated in Kazin's splendid and timely book.(The Nation) Kazin does an admirable job of tracing the transformations of the populist "persuasion," ending with its recent "capture" by the Right. Earlier populism—especially the People's party of the 1890s—was identified with the Left, concerned to limit economic inequality, committed to the rights of workers as producers, and inclined to regard political society as a moral community, to be judged by essentially religious standards.(Commonweal) In his new book, Michael Kazin provides a rich and thoughtful account of the evolution of populist rhetoric on the left and the right in American politics in the past century.(The New Republic) Michael Kazin introduces The Populist Persuasion with a forthright acknowledgment of the decline of the American left.... Attractively open-minded. If more minds were open, fewer of them would be boggled.(Times Literary Supplement) Felicitously written, densely researched, and sprinkled with astute observations, The Populist Persuasion also displays a knack for locating political and intellectual contradictions.(The Historian) The Populist Persuasion is provocative on individual moments and advocates and provides a rich source of information in both text and notes about populism's many expressions. This well-researched and lucidly written book provides a compendium of significant cases for teachers and scholars and suggestions for future research.(Quarterly Journal of Speech) In this book, Kazin provides a significant historical view of a complex phenomenon that has had a profound impact on American life. He deserves credit for enlarging the panorama and furnishing a fresh outlook on a significant aspect of American history.(The Annals of the American Academy) Kazin has produced an extremely stimulating and suggestive book. His analysis of the development of American political rhetoric during the past century is consistently lucid, incisive, and compelling.(History)

• Introduction: Speaking for the People1. Inheritance2. The Righteous Commonwealth of the Late Nineteenth Century3. Workers as Citizens: Labor and the Left in the Gompers Era4. Onward, Christian Mothers and Soldiers: The Prohibitionist Crusade5. Social Justice and Social Paranoia: The Catholic Populism of Father Coughlin6. The Many and the Few: The CIO and the Embrace of Liberalism7. A Free People Fight Back: The Rise and Fall of the Cold War Right8. Power to Which People? The Tragedy of the White New Left9. Stand Up for the Working Man: George Wallace and the Making of a New Right10. The Conservative Capture: From Nixon to Reagan11. Spinning the PeopleConclusion: A Language We Need?A Note on MethodNotesFurther ReadingIndex