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This book offers a global and systematic overview of populist politics of history in the twenty-first century. An international group of scholars interrogates how and why populists engage with the past. Twelve case studies focus on uses of history and memory by populist movements across the globe – ranging from Brazil to Bangladesh, from Poland to Tanzania. Five thematic chapters zoom in on key features of populism: its relation to time, nationalism, emotions, academic expertise, and the language of 'moral remembrance'. The focus is both on left- and right-wing populism, as well as on oppositional populism and populists in power. This way, the volume presents an empirically rigorous and conceptually innovative analysis of populist historical reason.
‘This excellent collection brings top scholars together to examine how memory and history are instrumentalised in various forms of populism. The result is a wealth of insights and critical perspectives, making it required reading for everyone interested in this key aspect of contemporary politics.'
Ann Rigney - Utrecht University
‘Populism's relation to history is both peculiar and necessary. For once, we have a book not on what populism is, or its relationship to democracy, but on the essential topic of populism's relation to history (and use of it), including ‘past presencing' for purposes of identity creation, evocation of affect, and political struggle. Among several remarkable ways of relating to the past, the book showcases odd but understandable chains of equivalence between nationally canonic elements of the past and the present, and a notion of time as (incessantly) updating what is already known rather than evolving. The volume's short, readable case studies are, in addition, great reflection-triggering texts. This intriguing book will leave readers more knowledgeable, if also perhaps more perplexed.'
Pierre Ostiguy - Universidad de Valparaíso
‘Remarkably global and comparative in scope, Claiming the People's Past breaks new ground in asking if there is a specific kind of ‘historical reason' that contemporary authoritarian and populist leaders and regimes – including those in the world's oldest and largest formal democracies – put to work when they stake their claims on pasts and futures. Populism is a much-discussed topic, and scholars have legitimately asked if this one word could indeed accommodate all the historical and institutional differences we seek to bring under its cover. The editors and contributors to this book build on these debates to answer a question that, to my knowledge, has not been asked before. Truly a very important contribution to histories of the present.'
Dipesh Chakrabarty - University of Chicago
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