> Canovan and Kazin are writing in opposition to both the apologists such as
> Goodwyn, and those of the classical school such as Hofstatdter. You
simply have
> the dates of various interpretations out of order.
No, I have the dates in order. Unfortunately I think I am having a problem getting my point across.
> The most recent scholarship on populism argues that Goodwyn etc. were too
soft
> on populism, while Hofstadter etc. were too hard on populism.
I'm interested in knowing what recent scholarship on the historical populists are you referring to. I'm pretty much unaware of recent monographs or broader work, outside of syntheses like Kazin and Ed Ayers' 1992 _Promise of the New South_ (which argues that elements of both Goodwyn and Hofstadter are correct). Also, in what ways do you think Goodwyn was too soft on the historical populists? If I recall correctly you stated that he got the progressive side of populism of populism correct. BTW, the best critique of Goodwyn I've read is a 1978 review essay by David Montgomery in the now defunct journal _Marxist Perspectives_.
> We can disagree about the more recent scholarship, but Canovan and Kazin
are
> hardly fans of Hofstadter and the classical school. Neither Canovan nor
Kazin
> consider the US 1890s Populists to be "provincial rubes."
Right -- the historical populists are clearly the good (or "left") populists in Kazin while the "right" populist Wallace supporters fit the classical negative stereotype of populism. I never claimed that Kazin considered the historical populists provincial rubes . Rather I said that definitions of populism (in a US context) that reduce the phenomena to anti-elitism miss what was fundamentally important about the 19th century agrarian revolt. Populism was first and foremost a movement to restructure the economy along more democratic lines. The fact that they used a language of "people vs. the elites" is of secondary importance. Thus, I obviously don't think that calling Wallace supporters populists is a legitimate use of the word.
> Kovel argues the lack of a populist structural critique point better than
I.
>
> "Now there are plenty of good populists, as I have said. However, so long
as
> they remain populist, they cannot rise above the implications of its basic
> method, which is to personalize politics. The racism and scapegoating can
be
> restrained, but the need to focus upon some personnification of evil
remains."
>
> http://www.publiceye.org/Sucker_Punch/Kovel.htm
Is this somehow supposed to prove that the historical populists didn't have a structural critique of 19th financial capitalism? Or that these original populists were too smart and sophisticated to be real populists? :)
mark