ABSTRACT
One book deserves a place among the founding texts on populism: the volume Populism, Its Meanings and National Characteristics, edited by Ghița Ionescu and Ernst Gellner and published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in 1969. This publication originated as a collection of lectures held at a conference organized by the journal Government and Opposition at London School of Economics and Political Science two years earlier. Richard Hofstadter's study explains the populism of North American farmers, focusing on the logic of survival which led them to oppose the financial and monopolistic dynamics. Alistair Hennessy explains Latin American populisms through their non-class nature, which he describes as "trans-class populism", and through the resistance of the peasant mentality in the new urban dimension. Ghița Ionescu clarifies the differences between Russian populism and the peasant populism in Eastern Europe, which he defines as "peasantism" and which was represented by parties such as the Serbian Agrarian Party, the Croat Peasant Party and the Bulgarian Agrarian Union.
