Currently reading
400 Years Of Freethought
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas Jefferson and Emily Dickinson
The Kingdom of Matthias: A Story of Sex and Salvation in 19th-Century America
The Populist Vision
Populists, Postel says were “influenced by modernity and sought to make America modern.” Postel shows rural people embracing change, and especially technological change that made their work and lives easier and more rewarding. This challenges the dominant strain of thought (especially Hofstadter) that sees rural people and especially populists as cranky victims of change, who looked back nostalgically to an earlier age when the rest of the world shared their agrarian “producer” philosophy.
