Presents a major reinterpretation of the most important American reform movement of the late 19th century.

Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment in America

History

Goodwyn, Lawrence

Americas

Oxford University Press

The origins and events of the agrarian revolt and the Populist movement are analyzed from an historical perspective as well as in light of the American concepts of freedom, democracy, and authoritarianism

The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America

This condensed version of Lawrence Goodwyn's Democratic Promise, the highly-acclaimed study on American Populism which the Civil Liberties Review called "a brilliant, comprehensive study," offers new political language designed to provide a fresh means of assessing both democracy and authoritarianism today.

The Populist Moment: A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America (Galaxy Books)

In the last year the world has been electrified as one Soviet bloc government after another has collapsed. The Berlin Wall has been dismantled and Germany reunited, Vaclav Havel went from the prisons to the presidency of Czechoslovakia, and the Hungarian people have dismantled the one-party state. But ten full years before any of these tumultuous events came the first successful challenge to the Leninist state--the shipworker's strike which began in Gdansk, and which led to the formation of the first free and independent trade union in the communist world, Solidarnosc. Now, in Breaking the Barrier, Lawrence Goodwyn provides a fascinating history of the Solidarity movement, tracing thirty-five years of working class activism and state repression that preceded and defined the climactic struggle of 1980 on the Baltic coast of Poland. Goodwyn demonstrates the extent to which Solidarnosc grew out of the workers themselves, not out of intellectual theories. He describes the strikes in 1956, 1970, and 1976, and shows how they provided workers with the knowledge to create Solidarnosc. Indeed in 1980, when they formulated and bargained for twenty-one demands which shocked even sympathetic observers, the workers proved themselves far better political strategists than the elite intellectuals of the "democratic opposition" who came to advise them. Moreover, Goodwyn does not simply recount these dramatic events. In his gripping narrative, the movement comes alive: we see Lech Walesa standing up to the powers of a physically and politically intimidating bureaucracy; we watch the difficult emergence of an alliance between the workers and Warsaw intellectuals, as the strikers adamantly refuse to compromise their demand for free unions, and we find touching portraits of the martyred priest, Jerzy Popieluszko, and the dissident, Adam Michnik. In the epilogue, Goodwyn offers a provocative critique of Poland and Eastern Europe today, in which he defines the distance still to be traversed to fulfill the democratic legacy of the early years of Solidarnosc. Based on personal interviews with Polish workers and intellectuals, as well as extensive historical research, this vivid interpretation of collective heroism and government corruption will interest anyone who has been amazed by the democratic revolutions in the East and who wants to know the real story of how it all began.

Breaking the Barrier: The Rise of Solidarity in Poland

Europe

In this intricately interpretive narrative, Lawrence Goodwyn explores the legend of the Texas wildcatter, the twentieth century's version of Thomas Jefferson's "yeoman farmer" and the nineteenth century's plains-riding cowboy. Goodwyn brings into clear relief the people who endeavored to act out the American Dream in the remote corners of "oil country." A driving force in American culture, the "American Dream," always difficult to define, nevertheless possesses one core quality: the thought that all citizens, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, enjoyed the opportunity to make something of themselves through their own efforts.
Goodwyn looks at the notion of the American Dream through the eyes of the Texas wildcatter. Surprisingly, even before the outlines of the wildcatter come into focus, other vague but seemingly omnipotent actors occupy center stage: major oil companies. Indeed, the "independents" and the "majors" are found to be abrasively yoked in awkward embrace; what immediately becomes clear in this intimate study is that the presence of one helps in important ways to define the other. In fact, as Goodwyn perceptively shows, the relationship of individual enterprise to corporate enterprise becomes uniquely visible in the sources amassed over half a century by the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association.
This peculiar relationship also came about because of another component of the national experience: the American antimonopoly tradition. In compelling detail, Goodwyn shows precisely how the American antimonopoly tradition has historically been mobilized by Texas independents in a sustained effort over many decades to defend themselves against the forces of centralization that have always occupied a dominant position in global petroleum.
Texas Oil, American Dreams has a magisterial quality whose ultimate meaning extends far beyond the borders of Texas because the enterprise of oil-finding and the wildcatters who have lived it constitute one of the most intense expressions of individual American striving. Above all, they kept careful records of their own efforts-when they prevailed and why, and when they met defeat and why. In Goodwyn's own words: "In its implications about the driving imperatives of modern life, their story is not provincial. It speaks to everyone who respects the idea of autonomy and independence."

Texas Oil, American Dreams: A Study of the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners Association (Barker Texas History Center Series, 5)

Business & Money

Biography & History

Texas State Historical Assn

In the German Hill Country of Texas memory is lived. By quirk of fate, this lovely region has become a repository for the yearnings of modern society to reinvent its past--a magnet for writers, artists, and people in search of a frontier heritage. The rugged landscape, rock farmhouses, hand-built stone fences, and carefully constructed towns have become part of an American dream. In eighty-eight contemporary photographs, Wendy Watriss and Fred Baldwin contrast today's Hill Country with historical prints of the life known by the early settlers. In 1848 it was land no one wanted--arid, rocky territory crisscrossed by Comanches and far from any market. Sold by speculators to unsuspecting German noblemen, the land became the setting for a distinctive way of life where language, physical struggle, political distinctiveness, and character created a tradition that is now attracting new kinds of settlers. The old remains but is being transformed. In the early 1970s, when the first of these photographs were made, descendants of pioneer families still reflected the values and life-style of previous generations. This story is not just a celebration of continuity, the land, or human heroism, however. It is also about the ironies and the dissonances of history. To uncover this story, photojournalists Watriss and Baldwin began visiting the Hill Country in 1972 and lived there from 1978 to 1980. Their work portrays the impact of modern culture and the redefining of heritage and history in a corner of American life. The essay written by historian Lawrence Goodwyn, provides a provocative context for further interpretation.

Coming to Terms: The German Hill Country of Texas (Charles and Elizabeth Prothro Texas Photography Series)

Arts & Photography

Baldwin, Fred

Watriss, Wendy

Photography & Video

Texas A&M University Press

Coming to Terms: The German Texas Hill Country

Shearer Pub

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