Despite the explosion of social movement research in Europe and the US in the last 20 years, the question of leadership has been relatively neglected. This probing examination of the theory and practice of social movement leadership critically re-examines a series of classic cases.

Introduction - The questions of leadership - Colin Barker, Alan Johnson & Michael Lavalette; Part One - Theorising leadership; 1. Robert Michels and the Cruel Game - Colin Barker; 2. Lenin and hegemony - The Modern Prince and post-modern discourses - Alan Shandro; 3. The sculptor and the marble - the role of the individual leader in history - the case of Martin Luther King - Alan Johnson; 4. A model of crowd prototypes and crowd leadership - S. Reicher, J. Drury, N. Hopkins & C. Stott; 5. Organising ourselves - the theory and politics of leadership in the Women's Liberation in Movement in Britain 1968-1980 - Kirsty Reid; Part Two - Studies in social movement leadership; 6. Tribunes of the People - Michael Lavalette & Nivel Flanagan; 7. Take me to your delegated representative - Jonathan Purkis; 8. The cult of personality - historical representations of leadership in the suffragette movements in Britain and Ireland - Louise Ryan; 9. Informal leadership and individual activism in the early Civil Rights movement - Jean van Delinder; 10. Leadership, political opportunities and movement identity - A case study of SOS-Racisme - Robert Gibb; 11. Political trajectories and leadership styles among Brazilian youth activists - Ann Mische