Dissident Political History: Social Movements in North America

Abstract

This essay focuses upon social movements in the United States, with comparisons to other North American countries that illuminate general themes. It considers the usefulness of distinctions between ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements derived from other national and continental histories, finding that the language of social movement has been used in the U.S. almost exclusively in reference to movements scholars from other regions would call ‘new’. The language itself came into wide use only with the New Left or non-Left, non-trade-union-based grassroots politics of the 1960s and 1970s.