Traces the anti-progressive, populist tradition of democracy in nineteenth and early twentieth-century movements by artisans and farmers as well as in major thinkers.

Introduction: the obsolescence of left and right -- The idea of progress reconsidered -- Nostalgia: the abdication of memory -- The sociological tradition and the idea of community -- The populist campaign against "improvement" -- "No answer but an echo": the world without wonder -- The syndicalist moment: class struggle and workers' control as the moral equivalent of proprietorship and war -- Work and loyalty in the social thought of the "progressive" era -- The spiritual discipline against resentment -- The politics of the civilized minority -- Right-wing populism and the revolt against liberalism.