Charles Tilly

Tilly also provided an overview of social movement, from their origins in the eighteen century to the early twenty-first century, in Social Movements, 1768-2004 (2004).

He has been described as "the founding father of 21st-century sociology" and "one of the world's preeminent sociologists and historians."

He published widely across topics such as urban sociology, state formation, democracy, social movements, labor, and inequality.

He was an influential proponent of large-scale historical social science research.

Charles Tilly (May 27, 1929 – April 29, 2008 ) was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian who wrote on the relationship between politics and society.

He graduated from York Community High School in 1946.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1950 with a Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude.

He served in the U.S. Navy as a paymaster of an amphibious squadron during the Korean War.

Charles Tilly taught at the University of Delaware (1956-1962), Harvard University (1963-1966), the University of Toronto (1965-1969), the University of Michigan (1969-1984), The New School (1984-1996), and Columbia University (1996-2008).

Tilly completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Sociology at Harvard in 1958.

While at Harvard, he was a student in the Department of Social Relations during the "Harvard revolution" in social network analysis.

Tilly was a teaching assistant to Pitirim Sorokin, who along with Talcott Parsons and George C. Homans was considered by many in the profession to be among the world's leading sociologists.

But every time Sorokin heard Tilly's ideas he would say something like "Very interesting Mr. Tilly but I do think Plato said it better."

Tilly eventually turned to Barrington Moore Jr.. and George C. Homans to supervise his dissertation.

But Tilly never failed to say that Sorokin was a great person (even though Tilly eschewed any great person theory of history).

In the 1960s and 1970s, Tilly studied migration to cities, and was an influential theorist about urban phenomena and treating communities as social networks.

In 1968 Tilly presented his report on European collective violence to the Eisenhower Commission, a body formed under the Johnson administration to assess urban unrest amidst the Civil Rights Movement.

The report was included in Vol. 1 of Violence in America, a collection edited by scholars on the staff of the commission.

He was a professor of history, sociology, and social science at the University of Michigan from 1969 to 1984 before becoming the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science at Columbia University.

At Michigan, Tilly was professor of history 1969–1984, professor of sociology 1969–1981, and the Theodore M. Newcomb Professor of Social Science 1981–1984.

His most highly cited books are: the edited volume The Formation of National States in Western Europe (1975), From Mobilization to Revolution (1978), Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1990 (1990), Durable Inequality (1998), and Dynamics of Contention (2001).

Tilly's academic work covered multiple topics in the social sciences and influenced scholarship in disciplines outside of sociology, including history and political science.

He is considered a major figure in the development of historical sociology, the early use of quantitative methods in historical analysis, the methodology of event cataloging, the turn towards relational and social-network modes of inquiry, the development of process- and mechanism-based analysis, as well as the study of: contentious politics, social movements, the history of labor, state formation, revolutions, democratization, inequality, and urban sociology.

At Columbia, along with Harrison White, Tilly played a key role in the emergence of the New York School of relational sociology.

The title of Tilly's 1984 book Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons is characteristic of his particular approach to social science research.

Tilly was born in Lombard, Illinois (near Chicago).

His parents were Naneth and Otto Tilly, Welsh-German immigrants.

At the New School from 1984 to 1996 he was Distinguished Professor of sociology and history 1984-1990 and University Distinguished Professor 1990-1996.

Tilly outlined the distinctive approach he would use in his research on the state and capitalism in Big Structures, Large Processes, Huge Comparisons (1984).

In this work, he argued against eight common ideas in social theory:

On the positive side, he argued in favor of "historically grounded huge comparisons of big structures and large processes", while being careful to consider the temporal and spatial context of explanations.

The approach Tilly laid out has sometimes been called historical sociology or comparative historical analysis.

More substantively, Tilly sketched a research program focused on two broad macro processes, capitalism development and the formation of modern states.

One of the themes that runs through a large number of Tilly's work is the collective actions of groups that challenge the status quo.

Tilly dedicated two books, on France and Great Britain, to the topics: ''The Contentious French.

Four Centuries of Popular Struggle (1986) and Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834'' (1995).

in 1996, he was the Joseph L. Buttenwieser Professor of Social Science.

Over the course of his career, Tilly wrote more than 600 articles and 51 books and monographs.

Later on, he co-authored two influential books on social movements: Dynamics of Contention (2001), with Doug McAdam and Sidney Tarrow; and Contentious Politics (2006) with Sidney Tarrow.

As informed by his studies of contentious politics in 19th-century Europe, and the present violence in the U.S., his interest in cities and communities became closely linked with his passion for the study of both social movements and collective violence.