The Populist Tempation Professor Barry Eichengreen

Barry’s book, “The Populist Temptation” argues that in the last few years, populism—of the right, left, and centre varieties—has spread like wildfire throughout the world.

He writes how the impulse reached its apogee in the United States with the election of Trump, but it was a force in Europe ever since the Great Recession sent the European economy into a prolonged tailspin. In the simplest terms, populism is a political ideology that vilifies economic and political elites and instead lionizes ‘the people.’