Traditionally, scholars have traced the origins and characteristics of social movements to purely local and national determinants. Until recently, the global dimension of such movements has been relatively neglected. This book takes the innovative step of linking social movements to international political and economic crises, identifying the general features of industrial and developing societies that predispose them toward social movements of particular kinds. The book consists of three parts. views the origins of the European working-class collective movement of 1848 from a variety of perspectives. reexamines the debate on the moral economy of the peasant in terms of "peasant nonrevolt" and global political economy. considers the emergence of fascist and populist movements in Western Europe and East Asia in their intersocietal dimensions. Each of the cases has been selected for its strategic contribution to an understanding of the occurrence of social movements in relation to large-scale societal crises. Collectively, the essays underscore the methodological utility of situating such movements in a global context.

Global Crises and Social Movements: A Comparative Historical Perspective -- The Mid-Century Crisis and the Revolutions of 1848 -- Interdependencies in Global Crisis: France and England in the Mid-Nineteenth Century -- The French Revolution of 1848 and the Social History of Work -- The "Retardation" of French Economic Development and Social Radicalism During the Second Republic: New Lessons from the Old Comparison with Britain -- The Mid-Century Crisis and the 1848 Revolutions: The Case of England -- Peasants and World Market Cycles: The Moral Economy of Agrarian Social Movements -- Market Demand Versus Imperial Control: Colonial Contradictions and the Origins of Agrarian Protest in South and Southeast Asia -- On Peasant Diffidence: Non-Revolt, Resistance, and Hidden Forms of Political Consciousness in Northern Nigeria, 1900-1945 -- One, Two, or Many Vietnams? Social Theory and Peasant Revolution in Vietnam and Guatemala -- World Market Cycles and Fascist and Populist Movements in the Twentieth Century -- Fascism and Economic Policy Controversies: National Responses to the Global Crisis of the Division of Labor -- Silk and Steel: Italy and Japan Between the Two World Wars -- The Northeast Asian Political Economy Under Two Hegemonies