Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (Galaxy Book) [Paperback]

C. Vann Woodward (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195007077 | ISBN-13: 978-0195007077 | Publication Date: December 31, 1963

Although Thomas E. Watson championed the rising Populist movement at the turn of the 19th century--an interracial alliance of agricultural interests fighting the forces of industrial capitalism--his eventual frustration with politics transformed him from liberalism to racial bigotry, from popular spokesman to mob leader. Pulitzer Prize winning scholar C. Vann Woodward clearly and objectively traces the history of this enigmatic Populist leader.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A model of its kind....A sympathetic understanding of broad social movements, a mature appreciation of character, an original interpretation of economic facts and factors, an incisive criticism of political techniques, and a literary style that is always vigorous and sometimes brilliant."--Henry Steele Commager, New York Herald Tribune Books

"Constitutes the best one-volume history that has appeared of that first crop of social ideals politically garnered in Populism....Also valuable in that it is something more than the story of Populism. It is a striking portait of a man."--W.A. White, Saturday Review of Literature

About the Author

C. Vann Woodward is at Yale University (Emeritus).

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 31, 1963)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195007077
• ISBN-13: 978-0195007077
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #237,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not only a seminal scholarly work, but a literary classic, July 18, 2000

By 

E. Martin "scalawagg" (US) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (Galaxy Book) (Paperback)

Woodward, the dean of southern historians, was the author of numerous definitive works on the south from 1865-1900, including THE STRANGE CAREER OF JIM CROW and ORIGINS OF THE NEW SOUTH. He won the Pulitzer prize for editing the diaries of Mary Chestnut, but he probably deserved it for this, his first work. Woodward was a master prose stylist, but I don't quite think he ever quite matched this book in wit and irony. The first half of the book is replete with CHARACTERS worthy of Anthony Trollope, John Brown Gordon, the "plumed knight of Appomattox" and main player in one of the great stock market scandals of the day; Joe Brown, the former confederate governor of Georgia also known as "Old Judge-MENT"; Alexander H. Stephens, the former vice-president of the Confederacy and a force to be reckoned with even in declining health; and last but not least Robert Toombs, a TRUE unreconstructed rebel, who refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Union after the war, who hated the railroads (and the use of public funds in their development) almost as much as he hated the North. Even though he was unable to hold public office, he maintained influence just by his force of personality. Above them all is Watson, a man who loves (and hates) not wisely but too well. A man of infinite paradoxes. An apologist for the "old south" who proclaimed the common interests between black farmers and white farmers. A white man who, more than once, would defend black political allies from lynching, but later would be the most vociferious defender of the practice. A crusader against corporations, he would grow fearful of socialism. A democrat with authoritarian personality. A man of the people who was one of the largest landowners (and landlords) in Georgia. A powerful "demagogue" (in the root sense of the word) who was a remarkably BAD politician and political strategist, eventually turning on every constituency and ally. Incorruptable, but in the end wholly given over to his (and his region's) prejudices, hatreds, and pathology.

This is a definitive biography, but not the last word on Watson--certainly not the last word on populism. As much as we see of Watson's psyche, this book is very much an account of a public life, the personal dimension and familial relationships are only touched on, sometimes only hinted at. If every there was a subject fit for a "psychobiography" it is Watson.

As to the movement he lead, the somewhat idealized portrait needs to be balance with reference to THE WOOL-HAT BOYS and BLACKS AND THE POPULIST REVOLT. But when all is said, this book is a classic. Worthy of sharing shelfspace with Boswell's LIFE OF JOHNSON and even Trollope's politcal novels and Gore Vidal's historical novels.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Searing and Memorable, October 20, 2000

By 

Schmerguls "schmerguls" (Sioux City, Ia USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (Galaxy Book) (Paperback)

Watson's story is a fantastic one, and this book tells it well. This book is superlative to follow Georgia politics in years Watson affected it. One is totally repelled by Watson after 1904, not only by his vicious anti-Catholicism but even worse by his role in the Leo Frank case. This book is a sheerly interesting book about an awful man. It is of interest that Woodward describes Autobiography: The Story of an Old Man's Life, by Nathaniel E. Harris as "one of the most remarkable books ever written." I wonder where I can find the book.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding scholarship & elegantly written, May 2, 2000

By 

Mark Nuckols - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (Galaxy Book) (Paperback)

Woodward was a master, and is sorely missed. Tom Watson is an epic and tragic story of a man, and the history of Populism as a movement, with all the aspirations and limits of American democracy. The single best work of history i have ever read. If it is out of print, that is a true shame.