Offering a fresh take on the origins of electoral populism, this title provides an in-depth look at how the decisions that defined the political and economic geography of the American West during the late 19th century contributed to the rise of one of the most significant third-party movements in American political history. Combining traditional forms of historical inquiry with network analysis and statistics, Adam Slez contributes to our understanding of political action by explicitly linking the evolution of the political field to the transformation of physical space through concerted action on the part of elites.