Symbolic Crusade
Status Politics and the American Temperance Movement
The important role of the Temperance movement throughout American history is analyzed as clashes and conflicts between rival social systems, cultures, and status groups. Sometimes the "dry" is winning the classic battle for prestige and political power. Sometimes, as in today's society, he is losing.
This significant contribution to the theory of status conflict also discloses the importance of political acts as symbolic acts and offers a dramatistic theory of status politics, Gusfield provides a useful addition to the economic and psychological modes of analysis current in the study of political and social movements.
"Gusfield details and documents with considerable skill the manner in which the political conflict over drinking habits symbolized the ascent and descent of status groups."--American Sociological Review
"In this tightly reasoned work covering the historical sweep of the American temperance movement, Professor Gusfield has made a major contribution to the sociological study of social movements."--American Journal of Sociology
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