Tilly, Charles

Charles Tilly (b. 1929) is a U.S. social historian who revolutionized the way that social scientists think about revolutions, social movements, and social change. Educated at Harvard, Oxford, and Angers (France), Tilly provides the metatheoretical and historical framework for resource mobilization and political process theories of collective action, social movements, and social change in his analyses of state making, revolution, and enduring inequality. Tilly incorporates elements of utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill), Max Weber, and Karl Marx in a scathing critique of Émile Durkheim's approach to social change and offers a synthetic theory of collective action based on Marxian interests, Millian opportunities, and Weberian organization. Tilly applies this model in historical analyses of state making and capital accumulation as these affect and are affected by changing ...