The Populist Vision - New Books in History Charles Postel

 Imagine an American political party that is in favour of public ownership of things like the railways, that has progressive views on science and women's rights and that believes in organising the financial system to help small farmers.

This was exactly what the People's Party of the mid Nineteenth Century was.  The judgement of history has not been kind to the Populists, and in this podcast we hear that the judgement was probably unfair.  The Populists have been slammed as backward looking agrarian romantics rather than their true identity as the closest the US has ever got to a proper socialist party.

http://newbooksinhistory.com/2009/07/22/charles-postel-the-populist-vision/