Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Contentious Politics and Social Movements
- PART I THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN SOCIAL MOVEMENT
- 2 Modular Collective Action
- 3 Print and Association
- 4 States, Capitalism, and Contention
- PART II POWERS IN MOVEMENT
- PART III DYNAMICS OF CONTENTION
- Conclusions: The Future of Social Movements
- Sources
- Index
- Titles in the series
2 - Modular Collective Action
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Contentious Politics and Social Movements
- PART I THE BIRTH OF THE MODERN SOCIAL MOVEMENT
- 2 Modular Collective Action
- 3 Print and Association
- 4 States, Capitalism, and Contention
- PART II POWERS IN MOVEMENT
- PART III DYNAMICS OF CONTENTION
- Conclusions: The Future of Social Movements
- Sources
- Index
- Titles in the series
Summary
In the mid-1780s, as the foundations of France's old regime were crumbling, a series of scandal trials began to unfold in Paris. In one of the most notorious, the Cléraux affair, a servant who had resisted the advances of her master was accused of robbing him and was hauled into court. Not only was the case decided in her favor (pace Dickens), but a wave of outrage against the courts and the lewd master surged across Paris. In a routine that had become familiar by the late eighteenth century, the master's house was sacked, his goods thrown into the street, and he himself barely saved from the fury of the crowd. A contemporary observer described the émotion in this way:
What violences! What tumults! A furious multitude filled the streets, straining to tear down the Thibault house with an ax, then threatening to burn it; covering the family with curses and outrages; almost sacrificing them to their hatred
(Lusebrink 1983: 375–376).The affair contributed to the atmosphere of corruption that would sink the old regime in revolution, but its forms and its rhetoric were familiar from the European past.
By 1848, everything had changed. In February 1848, as a new French Revolution gathered force, Alexis de Tocqueville left his house for Parliament. Along his route, as citizens quietly watched, men were systematically putting up barricades.
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- Information
- Power in MovementSocial Movements and Contentious Politics, pp. 37 - 56Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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