Description: Despite its enormous wealth, the United States leads the industrialized world in poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged unravels this disturbing paradox by offering a unique and radically different understanding of American poverty. It debunks many of our most common myths about the poor, while at the same time provides a powerful new framework for addressing this enormous social and economic problem.
Mark Robert Rank vividly shows that the fundamental causes of poverty are to be found in our economic structure and political policy failures, rather than individual shortcomings or attitudes. He establishes for the first time that a significant percentage of Americans will experience poverty during their adult lifetimes, and firmly demonstrates that poverty is an issue of vital national concern.
Ultimately, Rank provides us with a new paradigm for understanding poverty, and outlines an innovative set of strategies that will reduce American poverty. One Nation, Underprivileged represents a profound starting point for rekindling a national focus upon America's most vexing social and economic problem.
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Review Summary: Informative and easy-reading |
Date: 2007-05-13 |
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Details: This book provides information, both statistical and anecdotal, on the structural perspective of poverty. Inspirational and eye-opening, Rank reminds us that our social, economic, and political systems are to blame for the existence of poverty in America. |
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Review Summary: Intelligent, well-researched but utterly out of touch book |
Date: 2007-05-11 |
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Details: This is a book on American poverty. It is written by an academic. It is well-researched and intelligently written. There is no question, but that Rank knows his material.
That said, the substance of the book is utterly out of touch with reality. The book essentially makes two arguments. First, Rank argues for what he calls a "new paradigm" for understanding poverty. He argues that, instead of viewing poverty as the fault of individuals who do not work hard enough, we should view it as the fault of our social and economic system.
This, of course, is not a new argument. This would have been a genuine "new paradigm" if the book had been published in, say 1910. By the early 21st century, there is nothing remotely new about this thought.
Second, Rank argues that the American people ought to care about the poor. His assumption is that that we do not care, because, if we did care, we would vote for massive social welfare programs, which would fix the problem.
Professor Rank, were you living in a cave for the last forty years? The American people do care about the poor. We voted for President Lyndon Johnson, in 1964, who did all of the things that you want. It is a complicated story, but the short answer is that the whole thing did not work out as planned. In my opinion, the American people still care about poverty, but the problem is that no one has a plausible program for solving the problem. This book does not help to fill that gap. |
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Review Summary: Strong Argument |
Date: 2006-08-17 |
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Details: What I really enjoyed about this book was its organization and the strength of its arguments. It begins by laying out the extent and reasons for poverty in America. Then it shifts to developing several lines of reasoning as to why poverty is such an important issue that affects us all. And finally, the last third of the book talks about what can be done to effectively address poverty. I particularly enjoyed the last chapter that talks about what an individual can do in their daily life to create a positive change with respect to reducing poverty. I definitely plan to use the arguments in this book in the future.
I also appreciated the blending of solid research evidence with the sense of social justice and values that the author brings to bear. Overall, very well done, and very important!
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Review Summary: 5 stars? Really? |
Date: 2006-08-14 |
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Details: Mark Rank proposes many interesting ideas that attempt redefine how we think about poverty in America. Most of his ideas are solid, but my deepest concern is with the readers who gave this book 5 stars and used the word "interesting" to describe it. Did they actually read it?
This book is an unending parade of boring and repeated ideas presented in different, yet equally boring ways. I honestly beleive that this book has destroyed the thrill of musical chairs for me forever. This book could have been written in about 150 pages instead of the 250 it actually took if he simply used his original, not to mention solid, ideas. The nature of the book greatly weakened his overall argument.
Not only was the book dry, but it also seemed to fail to acknowledge the global system the US is a part of, and in particular, the role that immigration plays on poverty in the US. He talks about the US and the people in it as if they were static, but we live in a very fluid world, growing more fluid everyday, and I feel that his failure to ackowledge this fact truly hurts his overall argument. |
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Review Summary: A timely analysis |
Date: 2006-07-11 |
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Details: On Nation, Underprivileged is a timely discussion of an issue that impacts us all. In his book, Professor Rank carefully crafts a compassionate, analytical and innovative approach for addressing poverty in our country. This is a must read for all (especially policy makers).
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out of 21 Reviews
