Claiming the People's Past
Populist Politics of History in the Twenty-First Century

A global and systematic overview of populist politics of history in the twenty-first century.

Berber Bevernage (Edited by), Eline Mestdagh (Edited by), Walderez Ramalho (Edited by), Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt (Edited by)

9781009453639, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 6 March 2025

358 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.6 cm, 0.67 kg

'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

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.

Acknowledgments
Notes on contributors
Preface: is there a distinctly populist perspective on history? Jan-Werner Müller
Introduction: towards a theory of populist historical reason Berber Bevernage, Eline Mestdagh, Walderez Ramalho and Marie-Gabrielle Verbergt
Part I. Global Varieties of Populist Politics of History: 1. Don't mention the holocaust: The Alternative for Germany and Its Engagement with Pasts, Histories and Memories Klaus Neumann
2. Memory Policies and Uses of the Past during Kirchnerist Governments in Argentina (2003–2015) Cinthia Balé and Gustavo Guille
3. Mujib's two bodies: memorial populism in Bangladesh Julian Kuttig and Bert Suykens
4. Poland besieged: law and justice and its politics of history Paweł Machcewicz
5. Memory, history, and the politics of the Hindu right Neeladri Bhattacharya
6. Perpetuum mobile: Neo-Ottoman nostalgia as an impossible machine of conquest Yagmur Karakaya
7. Populist Islamism in East Africa: elaborating alternative futures from idealised pasts Felicitas Becker
8. Historical consciousness in the age of Donald Trump: populism, evangelicalism, and the typological imagination Oz Frankel
9. The past as distraction: engagements with history in the new Brazilian populism Mateus Pereira and Valdei Araujo
10. Populism, presentism, and the prospects of critical historical thinking in Russia Andrey Oleynikov
11. Historical narratives and the essentialist hazards of populism in Spain Pablo Sánchez León
Part II. Key Features of Populist Historical Reason: 12. Considering nostalgia: the affective practices of heritage and the politics of populism Laurajane Smith
13. Historiographic populist emotivism Aviezer Tucker
14. 'You feel me bro?': the role of emotions in the construction of collective identities in populism, nativism, and ethnic nationalism Chris Lorenz
15. Does populism challenge the expertise of academic historians? Allan Megill
16. National memory, moral remembrance, and populism Lea David
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Comparative politics [JPB]