23 Facts About Charles Tilly

Charles Tilly was an American sociologist, political scientist, and historian who wrote on the relationship between politics and society.

Charles Tilly 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.

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

Charles Tilly's parents were Naneth and Otto Tilly, Welsh-German immigrants.

Charles Tilly graduated from York Community High School in 1946.

Charles Tilly served in the US Navy as a paymaster of an amphibious squadron during the Korean War.

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

Charles Tilly taught at the University of Delaware, Harvard University, the University of Toronto, the University of Michigan, The New School, and Columbia University.

Charles Tilly 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, Charles Tilly played a key role in the emergence of the New York School of relational sociology.

In 1968 Charles 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.

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

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

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

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

Charles Tilly's 1975 edited volume The Formation of National States in Western Europe was influential in the state formation literature.

Charles Tilly has been criticized for not specifying what he considers to be a state.

Charles Tilly wrote several books on democracy late in his career.

Charles Tilly distinguished between different paths countries followed, based on whether they developed state capacity before, at the same time, or after they democratized.

Charles Tilly concluded that powerful states can block or subvert democracy, and that weak states run the danger of civil war and fragmentation.

Charles Tilly received honorary doctorates from Erasmus University of Rotterdam in 1983, the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of University of Paris in 1993, the University of Toronto in 1995, the University of Strasbourg in 1996, the University of Geneva in 1999, the University of Crete in 2002, the University of Quebec at Montreal in 2004 and the University of Michigan in 2007.

Charles Tilly was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government.

Charles Tilly died in the Bronx on April 29,2008, from lymphoma.