The Just Polity: Populism, Law, and Human Welfare

by Norman Pollack

Genres: History

392 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1987

Reviews

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good intellectual history of the Populist movement, similar in style to histories of Southern thought like that authored by W. J. Cash, going through prominent Populist intellectuals and leaders chapter by chapter and analyzing speeches, novels, essays, and books which detail various strains of Populist thought. The chapters on Watson and Donnelly are the most revolutionary: the normally radical Watson is shown to be in line with an anti-statist, conservative hierarchical thinking in line with his later, racist Southern demagogic views, while the eccentric and often dismissed Donnelly becomes one of the most progressive and left-wing Populists that didn't outright embrace socialism. There would have been something gained, however, in going over the various Congressional Populists and how their more tempered congressional existence contrasted and in some ways betrayed their Populist voters and roots.