Social Movements, 1768-2004 [Paperback]

Charles Tilly (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1594510431 | ISBN-13: 978-1594510434 | Publication Date: May 30, 2004

Westerners invented social movements during the 18th century, but after that social movements became vehicles of popular politics across the world. By locating social movements in history, prize-winning social scientist Charles Tilly provides rich and often surprising insights into the origins of contemporary social movement practices, relations of social movements to democratization, and likely futures for social movements. Shows how social movements are changing, including the impact of new technologies and globalization. Traces the invention and evolution of social movements with lessons for how social movements could lose their vigor. Explores fundamental questions such as 'How does democratization really occur?' Considers the relation of movements to identity, citizenship, and capital and questions whether social movements are viable in authoritarian states. Students will appreciate Tilly's vivid examples from around the world (including a fantasy of 17th century figures John Wilkes and Samuel Adams trying to discern the effectiveness of 2003 Iraq War demonstrators).

Editorial Reviews

Review

Tilly is able to view history from an exceptional height in this short, highly readable book without losing attention to historical complexities. This book presents the lifelong thinking of a leading scholar, and sets important research agendas for students of social movements in the 21st century. --Choice

About the Author

Until his recent death, Charles Tilly was Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University and is the author most recently of Explaining Social Processes (Paradigm 2008).

Product Details

• Paperback: 262 pages
• Publisher: Paradigm Publishers (May 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594510431
• ISBN-13: 978-1594510434
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,057,814 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Studying social movements requires the study of history, February 10, 2007

By 

Shaun King.com - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Social Movements, 1768-2004 (Paperback)

Charles Tilly decided to write this book for 2 reasons: he needed something meaningful to do during his approximately 5 month treatment of chemotherapy and secondly, Sidney Tarrow decided to not write a social movement's history.

Tilly thinks that a historical narrative is required to understand social movements. "History...helps because it identifies significant changes in the operation of social movements...and...because it calls attention to the shifting political conditions that made social movements possible" (pg. 3). Philosophically, Tilly is a historicist who refuses to "search for grand laws in human affairs comparable to the laws of Newtonian mechanics" this attempt, Tilly says, has "utterly failed" (pg. 9). Instead, a better "effort necessarily depends on turning away from 'laws' of social movements toward causal analogies and connections between distinctive aspects of social movements and other variables of politics" (pg. 10).

To that end, Tilly pursues 9 main arguments in this book:
(1) From their 18th century origins onward, social movements have proceeded not as solo performances, but as interactive campaigns. (2) Social movements combine 3 kinds of claims: program, identity, and standing. (3) The relative salience of program, identity, and standing claims varies significantly among social claimants within movements, and among phases of movements. (4) Democratization promotes the formation of social movements. (5) Social movements assert popular sovereignty (6) As compared with locally grounded forms of popular politics, social movements depend heavily on political entrepreneurs for their scale, durability, and effectiveness. (7) Once social movements establish themselves in 1 political setting, modeling, communication, and collaboration facilitate their adoption in other connected settings (8) The forms, personnel, and claims of social movements vary and evolve historically. (9) The social movement, as an invented institution, could disappear or mutate into some quite different form of politics (pgs. 12-14, 35-37,150-152).

Tilly pays very little attention to the history and power of ideas (this may annoy some Political Theorists). Also, according to Richard Hogan's book review in "Contemporary Sociology," proponents of the resource mobilization model and political process model of social movements will find Tilly's overall approach as a challenge and opposing view.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Too simplistic of an approach, February 25, 2009

By 

Maggie (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Social Movements, 1768-2004 (Paperback)

The book is fine, well researched and whatever, but I felt that his approach was far too simplistic. In addition, his theory of WUNC (worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment) does not even take into consideration leadership or the use of violence. In addition, his writing style is incredibly annoying - he begins with a VERY specific, in-depth example and you do not even find out what he is talking about until five pages into each chapter - so instead of giving us an outline of his argument, we are left to search through pages to find his main points.

5 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dry, and spineless approach to fascinating material, March 9, 2007

By 

Kristoffer Hull (Suffolk County, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Social Movements, 1768-2004 (Paperback)

I was required to read this book for a Sociology class. The point of the class was to study "movements" for social change. This book is very difficult to read, and is an extremely dry presentation of the material. The author skips around a lot going from movement to movement within a particular century. The early centuries are presented poorly, lumping an entire centuries worth of history for a country into 2 pages. And with that, trying to make connections between the first part of the century and the last part of the century.
This book also seems to make it a point to avoid talking about the United States. The US is given a page and a half in a 40pg chapter (including a half page chart) lumping everything from the Abolishonist movement, the Dry movement, the Women's movement, and Nativist movement without really discussing any of it.
The author also rips the spine out of these "movements" by so narrowly defining the term social movements that any type of voilent retaliation of "mob" mentality becomes eliminated from discussion.
If you have to buy this book for class, do so, just be prepared. If you want to study this material on you're own, use this book as a last resort.