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The utopia of the Populists was in the past, not in the future. According to the agrarian myth, the health of the state was proportionate to the degree to which it was dominated by the agricultural class, and this assumption pointed to the superiority of an earlier age.

Richard Hofstadter

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Richard Hofstadter
Age: 54 †
Born: 1916
Born: August 6
Died: 1970
Died: October 24
Historian
University Teacher
Buffalo
New York
Degrees
Dominated
Health
Pointed
Class
Superiority
Agrarian
State
Earlier
Populists
Age
Assumption
Proportionate
Future
Myth
Agricultural
Past
According
Populist
States
Degree
Utopia

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