The 2008 Sichuan earthquake killed 87,000 people and left 5 million homeless. In response to the devastation, an unprecedented wave of volunteers and civic associations streamed into Sichuan to offer help. The Politics of Compassion examines how civically engaged citizens acted on the ground, how they understood the meaning of their actions, and how the political climate shaped their actions and understandings.
Using extensive data from interviews, observations, and textual materials, Bin Xu shows that the large-scale civic engagement was not just a natural outpouring of compassion, but also a complex social process, both enabled and constrained by the authoritarian political context. While volunteers expressed their sympathy toward the affected people's suffering, many avoided explicitly talking about the causes of the suffering—particularly in the case of the collapse of thousands of schools. Xu shows that this silence and apathy is explained by a general inability to discuss politically sensitive issues while living in a repressive state. This book is a powerful account of how the widespread death and suffering caused by the earthquake illuminates the moral-political dilemma faced by Chinese citizens and provides a window into the world of civic engagement in contemporary China.

More than one million American children are schooled by their parents. As their ranks grow, home schoolers are making headlines by winning national spelling bees and excelling at elite universities. The few studies conducted suggest that homeschooled children are academically successful and remarkably well socialized. Yet we still know little about this alternative to one of society’s most fundamental institutions. Beyond a vague notion of children reading around the kitchen table, we don’t know what home schooling looks like from the inside.
Sociologist Mitchell Stevens goes behind the scenes of the homeschool movement and into the homes and meetings of home schoolers. What he finds are two very different kinds of home education—one rooted in the liberal alternative school movement of the 1960s and 1970s and one stemming from the Christian day school movement of the same era. Stevens explains how this dual history shapes the meaning and practice of home schooling today. In the process, he introduces us to an unlikely mix of parents (including fundamentalist Protestants, pagans, naturalists, and educational radicals) and notes the core values on which they agree: the sanctity of childhood and the primacy of family in the face of a highly competitive, bureaucratized society.
Kingdom of Children aptly places home schoolers within longer traditions of American social activism. It reveals that home schooling is not a random collection of individuals but an elaborate social movement with its own celebrities, networks, and characteristic lifeways. Stevens shows how home schoolers have built their philosophical and religious convictions into the practical structure of the cause, and documents the political consequences of their success at doing so.
Ultimately, the history of home schooling serves as a parable about the organizational strategies of the progressive left and the religious right since the 1960s.Kingdom of Children shows what happens when progressive ideals meet conventional politics, demonstrates the extraordinary political capacity of conservative Protestantism, and explains the subtle ways in which cultural sensibility shapes social movement outcomes more generally.

Sharp decreases in union membership over the last fifty years have caused many to dismiss organized labor as irrelevant in today’s labor market. In the private sector, only 8 percent of workers today are union members, down from 24 percent as recently as 1973. Yet developments in Southern California—including the successful Justice for Janitors campaign—suggest that reports of organized labor’s demise may have been exaggerated. In L.A. Story, sociologist and labor expert Ruth Milkman explains how Los Angeles, once known as a company town hostile to labor, became a hotbed for unionism, and how immigrant service workers emerged as the unlikely leaders in the battle for workers’ rights.
L.A. Story shatters many of the myths of modern labor with a close look at workers in four industries in Los Angeles: building maintenance, trucking, construction, and garment production. Though many blame deunionization and deteriorating working conditions on immigrants, Milkman shows that this conventional wisdom is wrong. Her analysis reveals that worsening work environments preceded the influx of foreign-born workers, who filled the positions only after native-born workers fled these suddenly undesirable jobs. Ironically, L.A. Story shows that immigrant workers, who many union leaders feared were incapable of being organized because of language constraints and fear of deportation, instead proved highly responsive to organizing efforts. As Milkman demonstrates, these mostly Latino workers came to their service jobs in the United States with a more group-oriented mentality than the American workers they replaced. Some also drew on experience in their native countries with labor and political struggles. This stock of fresh minds and new ideas, along with a physical distance from the east-coast centers of labor’s old guard, made Los Angeles the center of a burgeoning workers’ rights movement.
Los Angeles’ recent labor history highlights some of the key ingredients of the labor movement’s resurgence—new leadership, latitude to experiment with organizing techniques, and a willingness to embrace both top-down and bottom-up strategies. L.A. Story’s clear and thorough assessment of these developments points to an alternative, high-road national economic agenda that could provide workers with a way out of poverty and into the middle class.

Have the poor fared best by participating in conventional electoral politics or by engaging in mass defiance and disruption? The authors of the classic Regulating The Poor assess the successes and failures of these two strategies as they examine, in this provocative study, four protest movements of lower-class groups in 20th century America:
-- The mobilization of the unemployed during the Great Depression that gave rise to the Workers' Alliance of America
-- The industrial strikes that resulted in the formation of the CIO
-- The Southern Civil Rights Movement
-- The movement of welfare recipients led by the National Welfare Rights Organization.

Applying an original theoretical framework, an international group of historians and social scientists here explores how class, rather than other social bonds, became central to the ideologies, dispositions, and actions of working people, and how this process was translated into diverse institutional legacies and political outcomes. Focusing principally on France. Germany, and the United States, the contributors examine the historically contingent connections between class, as objectively structured and experienced, and collective perceptions and responses as they develop in work, community, and politics.
Following Ira Katznelson's introduction of the analytical concepts, William H. Sewell, Jr., Michelle Perrot, and Alain Cottereau discuss France; Amy Bridges and Martin Shefter, the United States; and Jargen Kocka and Mary Nolan, Germany. The conclusion by Aristide R. Zolberg comments on working-class formation up to World War I, including developments in Great Britain, and challenges conventional wisdom about class and politics in the industrializing West.

「要改變社會，首先你要先改變自己，要改變自己，你就要動起來！」──小熊英二
福澤諭吉之後，日本重量級社會思想家
中央公論新社新書大賞第1名
反安保學運社團SEALDs選書
李惠仁 紀錄片導演
吳叡人 中研院台灣史研究所副研究員
沈清楷 哲學星期五創辦人、輔仁大學哲學系助理教授
何明修 台灣大學社會系教授
柯一正 導演
范 雲 台灣大學社會系副教授、社會民主黨召集人
苗博雅 社會民主黨全國委員
崔愫欣 綠色公民行動聯盟秘書長
趙天麟 立法委員
──推薦
__________________________________________
改變社會是要改變什麼？又要如何改變？
許多人想改變社會，但卻又不覺得社會真的可以改變。根本的原因在於，人們不曉得到底該做哪些事才能改變社會。
投下神聖的一票，或者自己參政成為政治人物，就能帶來改變嗎？對此抱持懷疑態度的人不在少數。我們要怎麼理解這樣的狀況？社會可能改變嗎？要改變社會，應該怎麼做才好？這就是本書最核心的主題。
本書是日本社會學者小熊英二，在實際參與社會運動、與人相遇而有所感觸，以及與此同時進行的研究，再加上過去所學與研究成果，種種心得融合下執筆完成。
本書從歷史、社會結構、思想層面導入，第一章綜覽日本現狀，探討核電在日本社會所處的位置，第二章討論社會運動的變遷，第三章描繪日本戰後的社會運動史，第四到第六章則探討民主與選出民意代表的意義，並思索代議民主制度為何出現瓶頸，第七章將簡介有助於實踐社會運動的理論。
六○年代日本的社會運動曾經氣勢浩大，後又沉靜多年，近年從反核運動到反安保法運動，日本示威抗議又再次群聚街頭，但鮮少台灣人了解這些運動的來龍去脈，透過本書不僅能清楚這些前因後果，更能與台灣的社會運動作比較，並賦予自己力量與信心，思考如何透過公民運動實現理想社會。
各界推薦
得獎紀錄：‧中央公論新社新書大賞第1名
‧反安保學運社團SEALDs選書

「每一天發生的每樣事對我來說都是全新的。資訊不斷轟炸著我，經驗不斷轟炸著我……而我衰微的精神狀態幾乎要失控了。」
「你感覺自己將參與這歷史性一刻；在一區域中，整體生活模式裡很深刻的某項東西即將要轉變……你正在……創造……歷史。從某些方面來看是全然無私無我的，但（你）也同時發現了自我。」
「它讓我欣喜若狂……第一次這些片段碎塊嵌合在一塊……感覺像我自己……我認為透過它,我們不但成就了些事，也是實現我個人的救贖。」
「它是我人生中最長的夢魘：三個月──一九六四年的六月、七月、八月。」
本書即是詳述這個撼動美國六○年代，歷時不到三個月的「自由之夏」運動（Freedom Summer）。這段期間，超過一千人聚集至美國密西西比州，共同居住在「自由之家」，或寄住在當地不懼種族隔離主義者威脅的黑人家庭中。計劃期間，難以緩解的恐懼、令人苦惱的貧困，以及間或發生的暴力事件，都困擾計劃的進行，最後造成四位自願者被毆打致死、八十位自願者受傷、一百位自願者被逮捕，並有六十七間教堂、房屋及商店被砸毀或焚燒。這個夏天是每位參與者心中難以磨滅的經驗，他們的生命被改變，進而撼動整個世代。
「自由之夏」是美國社運的重要轉捩點，透過它所引發的文化與政治效應，孕生了日後其他重要運動，包括女權運動、反戰運動、學生運動等。自由之夏不僅為六○年代眾多行動主義的嘗試提供了組織基礎，同時也關鍵性地推動這個時代茁生的反文化思潮發展。

本书对韩国从出口导向型工业化开始到20世纪90年代末劳工运动的发展历程进行了研究，关注的焦点是文化和政治给第一代产业工人带来的冲击和他们的斗争模式。
《韩国工人》展现了一部令人着迷的历史。描述了发展中国家一种最具战斗性的工人运动在克服不利的文化和专制的工作条件的同时形成阶级意识的过程。同时，具海根恰逢其时的分析也向我们展示，随着向民主制度的过渡，新的大韩劳动组合协议会在政治上的成功，同时伴随着集体认同发生某种程度的削弱。
由于对于社会科学理论的充分了解，具海根对现代韩国的阶级形成作出了分析敏锐且体察入微、富有同情心的论述。由此，他对学术研究作出了杰出的贡献，令世界各地有关的劳工运动活动家和研究人员很感兴趣。

How do people become activists for causes they care deeply about? Many people with similar backgrounds, for instance, fervently believe that abortion should be illegal, but only some of them join the pro-life movement. By delving into the lives and beliefs of activists and nonactivists alike, Ziad W. Munson is able to lucidly examine the differences between them.Through extensive interviews and detailed studies of pro-life organizations across the nation, Munson makes the startling discovery that many activists join up before they develop strong beliefs about abortion - in fact, some are even pro-choice prior to their mobilization. Therefore, Munson concludes, commitment to an issue is often a consequence rather than a cause of activism."The Making of Pro-life Activists" provides a compelling new model of how people become activists while also offering a penetrating analysis of the complex relationship between religion, politics, and the pro-life movement. Policy makers, activists on both sides of the issue, and anyone seeking to understand how social movements take shape will find this book essential.

For the first time in a single volume, leading social movement researchers map the full range of applications of network concepts and tools to their field of inquiry. They illustrate how networks affect individual contributions to collective action in both democratic and non-democratic organizations; how patterns of inter-organizational linkages affect the circulation of resources both within movement milieus and between movement organizations and the political system; how network concepts and techniques may improve our grasp of the relationship between movements and elites, of the configuration of alliance and conflict structures, of the clustering of episodes of contention in protest cycles.Social Movements and Networks casts new light on our understanding of social movements and cognate social and political processes.

Exploring one of the most dynamic and contested regions of the world, this series includes works on political, economic, cultural, and social changes in modern and contemporary Asia and the Pacific.
The leading specialist on China's twentieth century peasant resistance reexamines, in bold and original ways, the question: Was the Chinese peasantry a revolutionary force? Where most scholarly attention has focused on Communist-led peasant movements, Bianco's story is one of peasant thought and action largely unmediated by modern political parties. This volume pays particular attention to the first half of the twentieth century when peasant-based conflict, ranging from tax and food protests to secret society conflicts, opium struggles, inter-communal conflicts, and tenant protests over rent, was central to nationwide revolutionary processes.

This book looks at legal and fiscal framework for civil society organizations (CSOs) in China from earliest times to the present day. It traces the ways in which laws and regulations have shaped civil society over the 5,000 years of China's history, and looks at ways in which social and economic history have affected the legal changes that have occurred over the millennia. It provides a historical and current analysis of the legal framework for civil society and citizen participation in China, focusing not merely on legal analysis, but also on the ways in which the legal framework influenced and was influenced in turn by social and economic developments. The principal emphasis is on how the Chinese people—as opposed to high-ranking officials or cadres—have been able to play a part in the social and economic development of China through the associations in which they participate. This book sums up this rather complex journey through Chinese legal, social, and political history by assessing the ways in which social, economic, and legal system reforms in today's China are bound to have an impact on civil society. The changes that have occurred in China's civil society since the late 1980s and, most especially, since the late 1990s, are nothing short of remarkable.

本书是新政治经济学译丛系列。本书对民主化与纷争政治之间的关系进行了深入分析。
前言
第1章 抗争与民主
第2章 政体及其抗争
第3章 欧洲的非民主抗争（1650-1850年）
第4章 法国
第5章 不列颠群岛
第6章 作为特例的瑞士
第7章 1815-2000年欧洲的民主与其他政体
第8章 欧洲与其他地方
参考文献
译后记

《社会运动(1768-2004)》展现了当前世界范围内的社会运动正在如何变化——涵盖了新技术和全球化的影响，磨砺了人们对于上述影响是否为“新”以及怎样为“新”的认识；追溯了社会运动的创建与演进历程，伴之以对社会运动何以丧失活力的检讨；探索了诸如“民主化何以真正发生？”等根本性的问题；考察了社会运动与身份、公民权及资本的关系，并对社会运动能否生存于威杈主义国家进行了思考。

本书在批判地介绍和分析西方经典社会学理论流派对社会运动（集体运动、社会运动、革命）的解释与解读之后，提炼出了影响和决定社会运动之产生和发展的三要素：变迁（各种社会变化）、结构（国家与社会）、话语（被社会运动所认可的）。作者认为，一些发达国家都有对社会运动比较强的制度化能力，而对于中国来说，亟待提升的正是这种制度化的能力。

社会运动和集体行为是西方社会科学界一个长盛不衰的研究领域，长期以来吸引了来自社会学、社会心理学、政治学、人类学和历史学等学科的大批研究者。本书所收的各篇论文主要反映了80年代中期以来社会学学科内有关社会运动研究的范式变迁：即从占统治地位的功利主义导向的资源动员理论向以意义建构和象征斗争为主要切入点的社会建构论的转变。这一范式转变既得益于社会学家对上述其他学科的最新理论成果（如认知心理学、文化研究和