American Populism A Social History 1877-1898

From the first crises in America's farming regions in the 1870s through the fracture and demise of grass-roots protest organizations at the end of the century. "American Populism chronicles the Populists' battles with the dominant institutions of an industrializing nation. In this readable and balanced account, Robert McMath examines Populism's relation to the social and economic networks of rural communities and to churches, schools, fraternal organizations, and trade unions, showing how it became a natural response to dramatically changing times.

Robert C. McMath teaches American history at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

"A balanced and comprehensive political history that manages to convey the magic of the Populist appeal within a shrewd assessment of its electoral and cultural limits."--Leon Fink, University of North Carolina

"American Populism was one of the most frustratingly complex movements of political insurgency in American history. McMath skillfully guides his readers through its many side roads and contradictions. he has succeeded in pulling together the social, economic, and intellectual threads that linked the struggles of dissidents from the Great Plains to the Deep South, presenting his story in vigorous and readable prose. We have badly needed a brief but insightful overview of American Populism. Now we have it."--Dan Carter, Emory University

"A masterful concise survey, easily the best now available. McMath is thorough and balanced, yet he manges at the same time to tell a good old-fashioned story."--Gavin Wright, Stanford University

"A substantial achievement, ably synthesizing the expansive scholarship and contributing to it in significant ways. Well organized and deftly argued, it constitutes the best modern general history of this important subject."--Peter Argersinger, University of Maryland