Charles Postel
Professor
On Leave Fall 2024
Phone:
(415) 405-0399
Email: postel@sfsu.edu
Location:
Humanities Building Room 439
I study United States history with a focus on the connections between political ideas and society. My recent book, Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896 (2019), is about the powerful social movements unleashed by African Americans, farmers, workers, and women after the Civil War. My previous book, The Populist Vision (2007), is a history of the Populist movement of the 1890s, a farmer-labor revolt against corporate power that reshaped American politics. I have also written about conservative and right-wing nationalist movements in recent U.S. history. I am presently working on a book about the African American experience in the World War II era.
Education
- Ph.D. UC-Berkeley, 2002
- B.A. UC-Berkeley, 1995
- Laney College, 1992
Research Interests
- Politics and Social Movements
- Populism
- Reconstruction
- African American Experience
- Racial, Gender, & Class Equality
- Conservatism
Selected Awards
- H. Wayne Morgan Book Prize, Honorable Mention, Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, 2021
- Society of American Historians, elected 2018
- Stanford Humanities Center Fellow, 2016-2017
- Fulbright-Dow Distinguished Research Chair, Roosevelt Study Center, Netherlands, fall 2012
- Ghaemian Scholar-in-Residence, Center for American Studies, University of Heidelberg, 2011-12
- Bancroft Prize, Trustees of Columbia University, 2008
- Frederick Jackson Turner Award, Organization of American Historians, 20008
- Roland Marchand Award for Service to K-12 Education, History Project, UC-Davis, 2007
Selected Publications
Books:
- The Populist Vision (Oxford University Press, 2008)
-
Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2019)
Book Chapters:
- “TR, Wilson, and the Origins of the Progressive Tradition,” in Progressivism in America: Past, Present and Future, David B. Woolner and John M. Thompson, eds. (Oxford University Press, 2015)
- “The American Populist and Anti-Populist Legacy,” in Transformations of Populism in Europe and the Americas: History and Recent Tendencies, John Abromeit, et al, eds. (Bloomsbury Academic, London, 2015)
- “The Tea Party in Historical Perspective: A Conservative Response to a Crisis of Political Economy,” in Steep: The Precipitous Rise of the Tea Party, Lawrence Rosenthal and Christine Trost, eds. (University of California Press, 2012)
Articles:
- “Populism as a Concept and the Challenge of U.S. History,” Ideas, 14, 2019.
- "What We Talk About When We Talk about Populism" Raritan: A Quarterly Review Fall 2017 vol. 37 no. 2
- "If Trump and Sanders Are Both Populists, What Does Populist Mean?" The American Historian. (August 2016)
- “Murder on the Brazos: The Religious Context of the Populist Revolt – A Case Study,” in The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (April 2016)
- “The 2016 Presidential Campaign: The Past and Present of American Tolerance and Intolerance,” Religion and Politics, February 2, 2016.
- “If They Repeal the Progressive Era, Should We Care?” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (July 2014)
- “Response,” in “Roundtable on Charles Postel’s Book The Populist Vision,” Kansas History, (Spring 2009)
Commentary:
-
“‘Populism’ and the Significance of Left and Right,” Jacobin, November 25, 2019
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/11/populism-and-the-significance-of-left-and-right
- “The Future of Work: The Coming Political Storms,” for a special project from the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, Pacific-Standard Magazine, Oct 2015
- “Why Conservatives Spin Fairytales about the Gold Standard,” Reuters, Sept 17, 2013
- “Populists, Plutocrats and the GOP Sales Tax,” Reuters, Feb 14, 2013
- “The End of White Affirmative Action,” Reuters, Nov 16, 2012
- “Why Voter ID Laws are Like a Poll Tax,” Politico, Aug 7, 2012
- “Occupy: A Populist Response to the Crisis of Inequality,” Mittelweg 36, May 2012, in Eurozine, July 2012
Courses Recently Taught
Undergraduate:
- 121: The U.S. 1877-present
- 300: Historical Analysis (GWAR)
- 424: Civil War and Reconstruction
- 426: Gilded Age and Progressive Era
- 427: U.S. in Depression and War
- 428: U.S. History since 1945
- 481: U.S. Thought & Culture
- 696: The Conservative Movement
Graduate:
- 705 Approaches to Political History
- 790: Readings in Reconstruction, Gilded Age & Progressive Era History
- 790: Readings in 20th Century U.S. History
- 790: Researching the Politics of Protest