Add Prime to get Fast, Free delivery
Amazon prime logo
Buy new:
$35.42
FREE delivery Thursday, January 9
Ships from: Amazon.com
Sold by: Amazon.com
$35.42
FREE Returns
FREE delivery Thursday, January 9
Or fastest delivery Tuesday, January 7. Order within 23 hrs 32 mins
In Stock
$$35.42 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$35.42
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Ships from
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Ships from
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Sold by
Amazon.com
Returns
30-day refund/replacement
30-day refund/replacement
This item can be returned in its original condition for a full refund or replacement within 30 days of receipt.
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
$4.58
Minor shelf wear/ creasing on cover. Pages have some handling wear. Over 1 MIllion Amazon Orders Shipped - Buy with Confidence - Satisfaction Guaranteed! We Ship Daily! Excellent Customer Service & Return Policy. Ships from USA. Minor shelf wear/ creasing on cover. Pages have some handling wear. Over 1 MIllion Amazon Orders Shipped - Buy with Confidence - Satisfaction Guaranteed! We Ship Daily! Excellent Customer Service & Return Policy. Ships from USA. See less
$3.99 delivery Thursday, January 16. Details
Or fastest delivery January 10 - 14. Details
Only 1 left in stock - order soon.
$$35.42 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
$$35.42
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Shipping cost, delivery date, and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
Ships from and sold by books_from_california.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the author

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements Paperback – May 1, 2004

4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"$35.42","priceAmount":35.42,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"35","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"42","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"kDwmLkyUZwqlwjuXUVxyDrInYBjZsZAfAhTENk%2Fivpa9laIdvPuuSSnqS5QW%2FBbgChYl4DiLGTO2Zf4ij5PSmfF010psa5szuZbz5dM4d0uu9M2e9YVm3AlnoS%2BOR%2Fy%2FgQzmAqlQdRY%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"$4.58","priceAmount":4.58,"currencySymbol":"$","integerValue":"4","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"58","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"kDwmLkyUZwqlwjuXUVxyDrInYBjZsZAffEQFrg0r8IhxcASC%2F8PIDMGDLhdT0ZK7BchfvE%2FwCOWLXcISmKTaPDgcqRENfJ6gB6sgPXGem9KLCBenSwfp6zJYCJtoOLcVc%2Bae862zAoQR0SVT23MwO%2BHo6KS%2FqMMketOlWyxcU1baDnchQGpcjA%3D%3D","locale":"en-US","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change.

Polletta traces the history of democracy in early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, in the civil rights, new left, and women's liberation movements of the sixties and seventies, and in today's faith-based organizing and anti-corporate globalization campaigns. In the process, she uncovers neglected sources of democratic inspiration—Depression-era labor educators and Mississippi voting registration workers, among them—as well as practical strategies of social protest. But
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after familiar nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship. Doing so has brought into their deliberations the trust, respect, and caring typical of those relationships. But it has also fostered values that run counter to democracy, such as exclusivity and an aversion to rules, and these have been the fault lines around which participatory democracies have often splintered. Indeed, Polletta attributes the fragility of the form less to its basic inefficiency or inequity than to the gaps between activists' democratic commitments and the cultural models on which they have depended to enact those commitments. The challenge, she concludes, is to forge new kinds of democratic relationships, ones that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness.

For anyone concerned about the prospects for democracy in America,
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting will offer abundant historical, theoretical, and practical insights.

"This is an excellent study of activist politics in the United States over the past century. . . . Assiduously researched, impressively informed by a great number of thoughtful interviews with key members of American social movements, and deeply engaged with its subject matter, the book is likely to become a key text in the study of grass-roots democracy in America."—Kate Fullbrook,
Times Literary Supplement

"Polletta's portrayal challenges the common assumption that morality and strategy are incompatible, that those who aim at winning must compromise principle while those who insist on morality are destined to be ineffective. . . . Rather than dwell on trying to explain the decline of 60s movements, Polletta shows how participatory democracy has become the guiding framework for many of today's activists."—Richard Flacks,
Los Angeles Times Book Review

"In Freedom Is an Endless Meeting, Francesca Polletta has produced a remarkable work of historical sociology. . . . She provides the fullest theoretical work of historical sociology. . . . She provides the fullest theoretical picture of participatory democracy, rich with nuance, ambiguity, and irony, that this reviewer has yet seen. . . . This wise book should be studied closely by both academics and by social change activists."—Stewart Burns,
Journal of American History

The%20Amazon%20Book%20Review
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.

Frequently bought together

This item: Freedom Is an Endless Meeting: Democracy in American Social Movements
$35.42
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jan 9
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
+
$12.29
Get it as soon as Thursday, Jan 9
In Stock
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Total price: $00
To see our price, add these items to your cart.
Details
Added to Cart
spCSRF_Treatment
Choose items to buy together.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change.

Polletta traces the history of democracy in early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, in the civil rights, new left, and women's liberation movements of the sixties and seventies, and in today's faith-based organizing and anti-corporate globalization campaigns. In the process, she uncovers neglected sources of democratic inspiration Depression-era labor educators and Mississippi voting registration workers, among them as well as practical strategies of social protest. But
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after familiar nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship. Doing so has brought into their deliberations the trust, respect, and caring typical of those relationships. But it has also fostered values that run counter to democracy, such as exclusivity and an aversion to rules, and these have been the fault lines around which participatory democracies have often splintered. Indeed, Polletta attributes the fragility of the form less to its basic inefficiency or inequity than to the gaps between activists' democratic commitments and the cultural models on which they have depended to enact those commitments. The challenge, she concludes, is to forge new kinds of democratic relationships, ones that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness.

For anyone concerned about the prospects for democracy in America,
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting will offer abundant historical, theoretical, and practical insights.

From the Back Cover

Freedom Is an Endless Meeting offers vivid portraits of American experiments in participatory democracy throughout the twentieth century. Drawing on meticulous research and more than one hundred interviews with activists, Francesca Polletta challenges the conventional wisdom that participatory democracy is worthy in purpose but unworkable in practice. Instead, she shows that social movements have often used bottom-up decision making as a powerful tool for political change.

Polletta traces the history of democracy in early labor struggles and pre-World War II pacifism, in the civil rights, new left, and women's liberation movements of the sixties and seventies, and in today's faith-based organizing and anti-corporate globalization campaigns. In the process, she uncovers neglected sources of democratic inspiration—Depression-era labor educators and Mississippi voting registration workers, among them—as well as practical strategies of social protest. But
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting also highlights the obstacles that arise when activists model their democracies after familiar nonpolitical relationships such as friendship, tutelage, and religious fellowship. Doing so has brought into their deliberations the trust, respect, and caring typical of those relationships. But it has also fostered values that run counter to democracy, such as exclusivity and an aversion to rules, and these have been the fault lines around which participatory democracies have often splintered. Indeed, Polletta attributes the fragility of the form less to its basic inefficiency or inequity than to the gaps between activists' democratic commitments and the cultural models on which they have depended to enact those commitments. The challenge, she concludes, is to forge new kinds of democratic relationships, ones that balance trust with accountability, respect with openness to disagreement, and caring with inclusiveness.

For anyone concerned about the prospects for democracy in America,
Freedom Is an Endless Meeting will offer abundant historical, theoretical, and practical insights.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Chicago Press; 1st edition (May 1, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 295 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0226674495
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0226571638
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.03 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 16 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Francesca Polletta
Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
16 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2015
    Quality book in fine condition delivered in a timely way. Thanks.
  • Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2007
    This is simply one of my favorite books, all around, even including works of fiction. It's well written, well researched, insightful and relevant for activists in the trenches. The well written and relevant parts are, sadly, often not true of academic work on social movements. As for the well researched part, Polletta did an astounding amount of archival research and interviews with activists to write this book. What emerges is a fascinating history of how twentieth-century US progressive social movements have tried to implement participatory democracy in their own organizations. It is a chronicle of failed experiments, gradually historical learning and increasing success.

    By reading this book, we get to see what has worked and what has failed. Polletta makes two main contributions in this book. First, she rebutts those who argue that participatory democracy is a nice ideal, but impractical--that top-down leadership is a more efficient form of organization. On the contrary, says Polletta, participatory democracy promotes 1) solidarity in groups, because everyone feels included in the decision-making process and thus more committed to any plan of action; 2) innovation, as more people take part in the back and forth as new ideas are developed; and 3) personal development, as active participation in decision-making lets more people develop new skills, including leadership skills.

    The other major point Polletta makes is that it has been difficult for movement organizations to successfully implement participatory democracy because we have so few models of such interaction in mainstream society. Therefore, we often fall back on patterns of interaction we are familiar with--religious fellowship, friendship and the teacher-student relationship. In certain circumstances, these can work for a while, but historically they have always lead to trouble. We need to develop new models for relating to each other to make participatory democracy work. On the practical level, Polletta says that the contemporary community organizing and global justice movements have both developed good practices that seem to have solved many past historical problems--though in very different ways. (This is also not to say that they have solved all problems--new challenges certainly lie ahead.) On a more abstract level, Polletta points to the Latin-American ideal of the compañero/a, a relationship that is close, but based on the common bonds of political struggle, not modeled on friendship or kinship or some other familiar form.

    All in all, this is an excellent, though-provoking, inspiring book.
    15 people found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2013
    A great book that provides a practical and analytical look at how participatory democratic advocacy groups function (and some of the pitfalls of their dysfunction). This was a great resource when my community formed its own social/political advocacy group. We still pass this book around as recommended reading.
    3 people found this helpful
    Report

Top reviews from other countries

  • BA Bulman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Relevent to Consensus Decision Making (CDM)
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 5, 2013
    Used this as a source and invaluable point of reference for my masters dissertation on the strengths and weaknesses of consensus decision making. It is packed full of rich participant observation and sociological analysis. I don't agree with all the ideas, but there is a wealth of experience and knowledge here that is essential to really understanding the ups and downs of direct democracy.
  • uselessarticle
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good social history
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 15, 2015
    A good read and informative about the era