Polletta, F. 2006. It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and
Politics. : University of Chicago Press.

Polletta, Francesca It Was Like a Fever: Storytelling in Protest and
Politics. 256 p. 6 x 9 2006
Cloth $45.00sc ISBN: 978-0-226-67375-2 (ISBN-10: 0-226-67375-8)
Spring 2006
Paper $19.00sp ISBN: 978-0-226-67376-9 (ISBN-10: 0-226-67376-6)
Spring 2006
Activists and politicians have long recognized the power of a good
story to move people to action. In early 1960 four black college
students sat down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro, North
Carolina, and refused to leave. Within a month sit-ins spread to
thirty cities in seven states. Student participants told stories of
impulsive, spontaneous action—this despite all the planning that had
gone into the sit-ins. “It was like a fever,” they said.
Francesca Polletta’s It Was Like a Fever sets out to account for the
power of storytelling in mobilizing political and social movements.
Drawing on cases ranging from sixteenth-century tax revolts to
contemporary debates about the future of the World Trade Center site,
Polletta argues that stories are politically effective not when they
have clear moral messages, but when they have complex, often
ambiguous ones. The openness of stories to interpretation has allowed
disadvantaged groups, in particular, to gain a hearing for new needs
and to forge surprising political alliances. But popular beliefs in
America about storytelling as a genre have also hurt those
challenging the status quo.
A rich analysis of storytelling in courtrooms, newsrooms, public
forums, and the United States Congress, It Was Like a Fever offers
provocative new insights into the dynamics of culture and contention.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
1. Why Stories Matter
2. "It was like a fever . . .": Why People Protest
3. Strategy as Metonymy: Why Activists Choose the Strategies They Do
4. Stories and Reasons: Why Deliberation Is Only Sometimes Democratic
5. Ways of Knowing and Stories Worth Telling: Why Casting Oneself as
a Victim Sometimes Hurts the Cause
6. Remembering Dr. King on the House and Senate Floor: Why Movements
Have the Impacts They Do
7. Conclusion: Folk Wisdom and Scholarly Tales
Notes
Index
