While covering cultural, organisational and personal sources of movements' power, the book emphasises the rise and fall of social movements as part of political struggle and as the outcome of changes in political opportunity structure.

This volume brings together eighteen thought-provoking biographical essays of some of the most remarkable outsiders of the modern era, each written by an authority in the respective field.

"Originally published in the U.K. in 2014 under the title Ten cities that made an empire, by Allen Lane, London."

A pioneering exploration of form, meaning, theme and function in African American slang, illustrated with thousands of contextual examples.