Providing a unique blend of cases, concepts, and essential readings The Social Movements Reader, Third Edition, delivers key classic and contemporary articles and book selections from around the world.

This third edition of the highly-successful Social Movements Reader builds on its selection of "classic" texts and core readings from recent decades with the latest research on contemporary movements in the US and around the world, including the Arab spring, Occupy, and the global justice movement. 

With its unique blend of cases, concepts, and essential scholarship, the Reader addresses commonly asked questions about these and many other movements, including: Why do movements arise? Who joins them? Why do they use particular tactics? And what do movements accomplish?

Requiring no prior knowledge about social movements, this new edition combines the strengths of both a reader and a textbook, supplementing the most important and readable articles and book selections on social movements with definitions of key concepts, biographies of exemplary leaders, new developments in the field, and timelines of several ongoing social movements.