Tom Watson, Agrarian Rebel

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.