This text gives an account of populism in American politics from the Revolutionary War to the present day. The roots of populism are found in the left, voicing the dreams and demands of exploited workers, the poor and the dispossessed. More recently, the populist tradition has been harnessed by the right, fuelled by the anti-Communist rhetoric of the Cold War, and the ascendancy of the Christian right. This development is traced through the presidential campaigns of George Wallace, to the forthright populism of Ronald Reagan.