"This book could not be more timely. DeFilippis, Fisher, and Shragge give us a seriously analytical yet readable discussion of the possibilities and limits of locally based organizing. A major contribution to the ongoing debates about community and social movement organizing."-Frances Fox Piven, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America<BR><BR>"This book offers the most incisive, compelling treatment of community organizing that I have seen. As a study of the strategic challenges of community-based action, it is not only authoritative but also highly original in its combination of sure-handed historical grasp, careful intellectual critique, and practical engagement with important community efforts taking place on the ground."---William Sites, University of Chicago<BR><BR>What do community organizations and organizers do, and what should they do? For three decades politicians, academics, advocates, and activists have heralded community as a site and strategy for social change. Contesting Community paints a more critical picture of community work, which, according to the authors-in both theory and practice-has amounted to less than the sum of its parts. Their comparative study of efforts in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada describes and analyzes the limits and potential of this work.