Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties (People, Passions, and Power: Social Movements, Interest Organizations, and the P) [Paperback]

Victoria Johnson Jo Freeman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 18, 1999 | ISBN-10: 0847687481 | ISBN-13: 978-0847687480

This book updates and adds to the classic Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies, showing how social movement theory has grown and changed_from an earlier emphasis on collective behavior, to the resource mobilization approach, and currently to analyses that emphasize culture, ideology, and collective identity. Top social scientists combine insiders' insights with critical analyses to examine a wide variety of social movements active in the most recent U.S. cycle of protest. Waves of Protest is a must-read for students of social movements, social change, political sociology, and American studies.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A 'good read' sorely needed to fill a gap in the political science literature on social movements. (O'Connor, Karen )

Freeman, Johnson, and their fellow authors survey American social movements since the 1960s with enthusiasm and perspicacity, forcing us to recognize how movement activity has transformed American life over the last half-century. (Tilly, Charles )

The current generation of political science students will appreciate the useful summaries and valuable analyses of movements' political strategies within the structures of the American political system. (McFarland, Andrew S. )

Fresh, timely, and widely useful. . . . Readers are informed about a wide range of movements as well as given conceptual tools to analyze them. (Ferree, Myra Marx )

This is a highly useful and empirically rich collection that considers movements since the sixties as a protest wave. Indeed, the movements here are a tsunami of challenge and contention that will pique the interest of students. (Johnston, Hank )

This is an important contribution to the development of political thought. (Race Relations Abastracts )

Waves of Protest is excellent social science. It is well-written, empirical, and intellectually stimulating. The book will be useful for students and scholars of political science, sociology, and social movements, and for people interested in working in such movements. In comparison with other sociological treatments of organizational behavior, Waves of Protest provides theoretical breadth, new concepts about organizations, and substantive empirical results. It offers new understanding of recent U.S. social history. (Perspectives On Political Science )

A wide range of movements are examined. Written in an accessible style, this book is aimed at students of social movements from undergradute level onwards. (Political Studies )

My students like this book. They tell me they plan to keep it. (Thomas Hodd )

About the Author

Jo Freeman is editor of Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies and Women: A Feminist Perspective and author of A Room at a Time and The Politics of Women's Liberation. Victoria Johnson is assistant professor of sociology at Bates College and a contributor to several anthologies on social movements.

Product Details

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (March 18, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0847687481
• ISBN-13: 978-0847687480
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #683,529 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waves of Protest Review, June 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties (People, Passions, and Power: Social Movements, Interest Organizations, and the P) (Paperback)

Waves of Protest provides an invaluable source of analytical and factual insight into social movements since the nineteen sixties. This collection of essays exceeds in examining social movements through a cohesive paradigm of mobilization, organization, consciousness, strategy and tactics, and decline. The five parts serve to illuminate the interconnection that all social movements touch and further produce a map of how to tap into social consciousness. These essays range in political perspective and subject matter, yet each combines elements of political, social and cultural examination. This approach to dissecting the social movements for the reader allows the book to be just as valid for a history class as it is for a sociologist or a political science major yet the true power of this book exists for those who wish to bring about change in this world. By showing the vast connections of pre-existing social networks, analyzing the pro's and con's of social movement organizations power structures, to even the way a crisis crystallizes a movement, the collection of essays provide enough insight to learn from the past so new formes of protest may occur. Being published in an age of mass cultural homogenization, one must wonder why more attention was not paid to questioning what effective ways could spear head the next needed set of social waves. Though many prison doors have been broken open since the sixties the glass ceiling still holds much more subtle, but no less effective ways of confining all subordinate classes. Though there is no easy way to face the new movements needed to stop corporate media control, or educational inadequacy the only way to face the next series of problems is to learn from the past advances and mistakes and Waves of Protest excels at illuminating the necessary and critical factors of social movement since the sixties.