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
3 - Print and Association
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
One afternoon in April, 1775, a young stable boy in Boston overheard a British army officer tell another that there would be “hell to pay tomorrow.” Running to the home of a local silversmith, a certain Paul Revere, he reported what he had heard. Putting this information together with rumors he had heard of British officers gathered on Boston's long wharf, Revere and his friend Joseph Warren became convinced that the British were about to march on the town of Lexington to arrest colonial leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams and seize stores of arms that were stocked in the town of Concord by the local militia (Gladwell 2002: 1–2). “What happened next,” writes Malcolm Gladwell, “has become part of historical legend, a tale told to every American schoolchild.” Revere crossed the harbor to the ferry landing at Charlestown, saddled up, and began his “midnight ride.” “In every town he passed through along the way,” Gladwell continues, “he knocked on doors and spread the word, telling local colonial leaders of the oncoming British, and telling them to spread the word to others”:
Church bells started ringing. Drums started beating. The news spread like a virus as those informed by Paul Revere sent out riders of their own, until alarms were going off throughout the entire region.…When the British finally began their march towards Lexington on the morning of the nineteenth, their foray into the countryside was met – to their utter astonishment – with organized and fierce resistance
(p. 2).- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Power in MovementSocial Movements and Contentious Politics, pp. 57 - 70Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011