Jeff Goodwin is professor of sociology at New York University.James M. Jasper is the author of several books including Nuclear Politics, The Animal Rights Crusade (with Dorothy Nelkin), The Art of Moral Protest, and Restless Nation.

[This book] is a most welcome and useful assessment of recent theory, one that will contribute to regenerating the field of social movements and contentious politics.

• Chapter 1 IntroductionPart 2 I Political Process Theory: Opportunity or Constraint?Chapter 3 Caught in a Winding, Snarling Vine: The Structural Bias of Political Process TheoryChapter 4 Wise QuacksChapter 5 Paradigm Warriors: Regress and Progress in the Study of Contentious PoliticsChapter 6 Tending the Vineyard: Cultivating Political Process ResearchChapter 7 Political Opportunity Structure: Some Splitting to Balance the LumpingChapter 8 Trouble in ParadigmsPart 9 II Beyond Dominant ParadigmsChapter 10 Culture Is Not Just in Your HeadChapter 11 The Post-Structuralist Consensus in Social Movement TheoryChapter 12 The Intellectual Challenges of Toiling in the VineyardChapter 13 Knowledge for What? Thoughts on the State of Social Movements StudiesChapter 14 Passionate Political Processes: Bringing Emotions Back into the Study of Social MovementsChapter 15 Why David Sometimes Wins: Strategic Capacity in Social MovementsPart 16 III Concluding ReflectionsChapter 17 Rethinking Political Process TheoryChapter 18 Reflections on Social Movement Theory: Criticisms and ProposalsChapter 19 Hot Movements, Cold Cognition: Thinking about Social Movements in Gendered Frames