poppy family Family Papaveraceae, containing about 200 species of mostly herbaceous plants and some woody small trees and shrubs. Most species of this family, which is outstanding for its many garden ornamen¬ tals (largely of the genus Papaver) and for pharmaceutically important plants, are found in the Northern Hemisphere. All have cup-shaped flow¬ ers, a capsule fruit, leaves that are usually deeply cut or divided into leaf¬ lets, and coloured sap. Members include the opium poppy and the com, or Flanders, poppy ( P. rhoeas ), the seeds of which may lie dormant for years. The latter became a symbol of World War I because it bloomed in fields that had been disturbed by battle. See also California poppy.
popular front In European politics, any coalition of working-class and middle-class political parties united to defend democracy against an expected fascist assault. The policy of a “united front” against fascism was announced at the communist Third International (1935); it was to include not only communists and socialists but also liberals, moderates, and even conservatives. Popular-front governments were formed in France and Spain in 1936, but the financial consequences of the reforms undertaken by the French government, under Leon Blum, proved its undoing, and the Spanish government was brought down by Francisco Franco in the Span¬ ish Civil War.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO) orig. Dho- far Liberation Front Resistance group founded in 1963 by Arab nationalists and religious conservatives to depose Sultan SaTd ibn Taymur (r. 1932-70). In 1968 its leadership was taken over by Marxists. In 1970 the sultan was deposed by his son, Qabus ibn SaTd, who softened the resistance with a combination of military pressure and economic devel¬ opment.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Saguia el Hamra and
Rio de Oro See Polisario
popular music Any music intended to be received and appreciated by ordinary people in a literate, technologically advanced society dominated by urban culture. Unlike traditional FOLK MUSIC, popular music is written by known individuals, usually professionals, and does not evolve through the process of oral transmission. Historically, popular music was any non¬ folk form that acquired mass popularity—from the songs of the medieval minstrels and troubadours to those elements of fine art music originally intended for a small, elite audience but that became widely popular. After the Industrial Revolution, true folk music began to disappear, and the popular music of the Victorian era and the early 20th century was that of the music hall and vaudeville, with its upper reaches dominated by waltz music and operettas. In the U.S., minstrel shows performed the composi-
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1530 I Popular Party ► pork
tions of songwriters such as Stephen Foster. In the 1890s Tin Pan Alley emerged as the first popular song-publishing industry, and over the next half century its lyricism was combined with European operetta in a new kind of play known as the musical. Beginning with ragtime in the 1890s, African Americans had begun combining complex African rhythms with European harmonic structures, a synthesis that would eventually create jazz. The music audience greatly expanded, partly because of technology. By 1930, phonograph records had replaced sheet music as the chief source of music in the home. The microphone enabled more intimate vocal tech¬ niques to be commercially adapted. The ability of radio broadcasting to reach rural communities aided the dissemination of new styles, notably country music. U.S. popular music achieved international dominance in the decades after World War II. By the 1950s, the migration of African Americans to cities in the North had resulted in the cross-fertilization of elements of blues with the uptempo rhythms of jazz to create rhythm and blues. Rock and roll, with figures such as Elvis Presley, soon developed as an amalgam of rhythm and blues with country music and other influences (see rock music). In the 1960s, British rock groups, including the Beatles, became internationally influential. Rock quickly attracted the allegiance of Western teenagers, who replaced young adults as the chief audience for popular music. From the late 1960s black pop (see Motown) achieved greater sophistication and a wide audience. The history of pop through the 1990s was basically that of rock and its variants, including disco, heavy metal, punk rock, and rap, which spread throughout the world and became the standard musical idiom for young people in many countries.
Popular Party (Italy) See Italian Popular Party
Popular Republican Movement (MRP) French social reform party. Founded in 1944, the MRP was a strong centre party of the Fourth Republic and the French expression of Christian Democracy. After winning about 25% of the vote, it declined in the 1950s, losing strength to both right and left factions. In 1966 it was merged with other right-centre par¬ ties to become the Centre Democrate, which won only 13% of the vote. By 1968 it had become little more than a political club.
popular sovereignty Political doctrine that allowed the settlers of U.S. federal territories to decide whether to enter the Union as free or slave states. It was applied by Sen. Stephen A. Douglas as a means to reach a compromise through passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Critics of the doctrine called it “squatter sovereignty.” The resulting violence between pro- and antislavery factions (see Bleeding Kansas) showed its failure as a workable compromise. See also Dred Scott decision.
Populares See Optimates and Populares
Populations I and II Two broad classes of stars and stellar groupings, whose members differ primarily in age, chemical composition, and loca¬ tion in galaxies. They were distinguished and named by Walter Baade (1893-1960). Population I consists of younger stars, clusters, and asso¬ ciations. These occur in and near the arms of the Milky Way Galaxy and other spiral galaxies and have been detected in irregular galaxies (such as the Magellanic Clouds). Population I objects are thought to have origi¬ nated from interstellar gas that underwent various processes, including supernova explosions, which enriched their constituent matter with heavier elements. Population II consists of older (generally 1 billion-15 billion years old) stars and clusters, presumably formed from interstellar gas clouds that emerged very early in a galaxy’s history. Consisting almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, they are found in the galactic halos of spiral galaxies, in globular clusters, and, in large numbers, in elliptical galaxies. Astronomers sometimes refer to a Population III as the very first generation of stars to emerge after the big bang.
populism Political program or movement that champions the common person, usually by favourable contrast with an elite. Populism usually combines elements of the left and right, opposing large business and finan¬ cial interests but also frequently being hostile to established socialist and labour parties. In the U.S. the term was applied to the program of the Populist movement of the 1890s.
Populist See Narodnik
Populist Movement Coalition of U.S. agrarian reformers in the Mid¬ west and South in the 1890s. The movement developed from farmers’ alliances formed in the 1880s in reaction to falling crop prices and poor credit facilities. The leaders organized the Populist, or People’s, Party (1892), which advocated a variety of measures to help farmers. They also demanded an increase in the circulating currency (to be achieved by the
unlimited coinage of silver), a graduated income tax, government own¬ ership of the railroads, a tariff for revenue only, and the direct election of U.S. senators. The party’s presidential candidate in 1892, James B. Weaver (1833-1912), received more than one million votes. Many state and local Populist candidates were elected in the Midwest. In 1896 the Populists joined with the Democratic Party to support the Free Silver Movement and the unsuccessful presidential candidacy of William Jennings Bryan. The movement declined thereafter, though some of its causes were later embraced by the Progressive Party.