Charles Postel

Biography

My teaching and research focus on social movements and politics in the United States. I am especially interested in the political ideas that have inspired radical protest and reform, as well as conservative activism.

I teach courses on the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction, on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and the New Deal. I also teach about the conservative movement, and recent U.S. history.

My new book, Equality: An American Dilemma, 1866-1896 (2019), is about the powerful social movements unleashed by the Civil War and their often clashing claims to racial, sexual, and economic equality. My previous book, The Populist Vision (2007), is a history of the Populist movement of the 1890s, the most forceful revolt against corporate power in U.S. history.

 

Education

• Ph.D. UC-Berkeley, 2002
• B.A. UC-Berkeley, 1995
• Laney College, 1992

Research Interests

• Politics & Social Movements
• Populism
• Radicalism & Reform
• Gilded Age & Progressive Era
• Conservatism

Selected Awards

• 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:

• "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)
• “Populism as a Concept and the Challenge of U.S. History,” Ideas, 14, 2019.
   

Commentary:

• “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
• 696: The Conservative Movement

Graduate:

• 705 Approaches to Political History
• 790: Readings in Reconstruction, Gilded Age & Progressive Era History
• 790: Readings in 20^th Century U.S. History
• 790: Researching the Politics of Protest