Who were the populists? Jew haters and baiters or humanists? Anti-intellectual Babbitts or rational radicals? Proto-fascists or proto-reformers? Professor Pollack passionately supports the traditional, sympathetic, liberal portrayal of the movement in his fascinating Introduction. Here he breaks lances with the establishement of the revisionist school - Richard Hofstander, Oscar Handlin, and Seymour Martin Lipset, among others. The eighty-nine documents assembled in this anthology - from newspaper articles, editorials, political speeches and tracts, manuscripts, letters, and books - in many cases are reprinted here for the first time. They may or may not convince you that Mr. Pollack is correct in his "counter-revisionist" interpretation of the Populist movement. The documents are specific about the exploitative conditions of the time, their causes and their proposed solutions. But they leave open for the reader the still ambiguous interpretation of what motivated the participants. For example, Ignatius onnelley, western Populist from Minneapolis, wrote in CAESAR'S COLUMN (1890) : The world today clamors for deeds, not creeds; for charity, not ceremony;for love, not intellect. Are these the words of a messianic crackpot or of an effective radical reformer with a realistic program? Was the Young Tom Watson, leader of the People's Party in the South, friend to the Negro, crusading liberal of the period, the true Tom Watson? Or was a Hyde to this Jekyll ever lurking in his program and personality - expressing itself in the virulently anti-Semictic, aniti-Catholic, anti-Negro utterances of the old Thomas E. Watson from the floor of the United States Senate? As Pollack syas at the conclusion of his Introduction : "A great deal of work remains to be done, both in research and interpretation, before the Populist movement as a dynamic social force is fully understood". This superb collection may suggest paths to that end" - Publisher.