The word 'populism' has come to cover all manner of sins. Yet despite the prevalence of its use, it is often difficult to understand what connects its various supposed expressions. From Syriza to Trump and from Podemos to Brexit, the electoral earthquakes of recent years have often been grouped under this term. But what actually defines 'populism'? Is it an ideology, a form of organisation, or a mentality? Marco Revelli seeks to answer this question by getting to grips with the historical dynamics of so-called 'populist' movements. While in the early days of democracy, populism sought to represent classes and social layers who asserted their political role for the first time, in today's post-democratic climate, it instead expresses the grievances of those who had until recently felt that they were included. Having lost their power, the disinherited embrace not a political alternative to -isms like liberalism or socialism, but a populist mood of discontent. The new populism is the 'formless form' that protest and grievance assume in the era of financialisation, in the era where the atomised masses lack voice or organisation. For Revelli, this new populism the child of an age in which the Left has been hollowed out and lost its capacity to offer an alternative.

Two of the major forces that have made an impact on West European politics in recent years have been Green and New Populist parties. While they differ radically in their ideological positions, policy prescriptions and bases of support, taken together they represent the left and right versions of a protest against the general direction and form of contemporary politics. Surveying the fortunes of these two types of parties in different countries, the author develops a framework for explaining their relative success and failure. Using the specific cases of two Swedish protest parties, the Green Party and New Democracy, a systematic comparison is made of their electoral constituencies, party organization and elite behaviour to show that there are common origins, similar difficulties but divergent strategies. The case study reveals the different way in which political systems incorporate contemporary left and right forms of protest.

Fred Harris is against bigness--against the concentrated economic and political power in American government, corporations, unions, and institutions that exploits most of us. His new populism calls upon Americans to re-assert our individual rights and individual power by getting ourselves together adn forming a popular majority that will enable "we the people" to reclaim the power that is rightly ours.

A paper reprint of the 1988 original. It is a political history that describes and analyzes the management of organized knowledge. Wheatley takes Flexner and the Carnegie Foundation of 1910 as the model. Portz (political science, Northeastern U.) combines a synthesis of the literature on urban politics and political economy with a close analysis of plant closings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Louisville, Kentucky, and Waterloo, Iowa, to illuminate the complexity of, constraints upon, and range of local government efforts to control the economic damage caused by shutdowns. Paper edition (unseen), $12.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Not an essay in normative political philosophy, but a discussion of the present-day developments in American political thought as they focus on community. Fowler (political science, U. of Wisconsin) tells the story of the coming of age of community in the thought of American political intellectuals and provides measured analysis and reflection on some of the directions in which thinking about community has proceeded. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Populist Party reacted to the anxiety that America was moving towards a new form of slavery after the Industrial Revolution, with a stand against imperialism. This study of the party reveals the personalities that shaped the movement.