Paul Almeida has just written the definitive book on social movements and social protests.

The book is called Social Movements: the Structure of Collective Mobilization and it is published by the University of California Press.

It is technically a textbook – but it is legible enough for pretty much anyone. If you are not a professional social scientist – skip Chapter 2 – the one on technical methodology.

The remaining chapters contains critical information for anyone who is engaged in protest or trying to mobilize other people to achieve social change.

Paul Almeida is the leading scholar in the U.S. on the causes and effects of social movements. The book covers not only his own work (he is one of the central intellectual figures in the field), but the work of nearly everyone else that matters.

The book contains literally dozens and dozens and dozens of useful ideas. Summarizing them all in one web essay would be impossible.

*   *   *

But let me put a challenge out to the reader.

What Are the Fifteen Secrets of Actually Winning Your Social Protests?

But the answer to that question can be found in one distinct chapter of the book.

The remaining chapters have material that is even more useful than that.

I will give you the answer next week, but you are better off getting the book and finding it out right now.