The Greatest of Evils

by Joel Devine and Joel A. Devine

Book Overview

This volume, develops three principal themes. First, poverty is not monolithic; secondly, the so-called underclass within the poverty population represents a new and corrosive development; and, third, the War on Poverty of the 1960s offered a boldness of vision that today's poverty policies tend to lack. The authors show how the social and economic costs of poverty-related problems were linked at the policy level to finding useable remedies.The United...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0202304744
• ISBN13: 9780202304748
• Release Date: September 1993
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 236 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

A Fundamental Contribution!

I picked up this book looking to learn a thing or two about urban poverty in the United States. What I walked away with was an eye-opening & gut-wrenching portrayal of how the American right has distorted perceptions about urban poverty for 40 years and how the successes of public policy have been overshadowed by urban myths and suburban conventional wisdom.Wright and Devine force the issue on drugs, crime, & opportunity and make the case that non-intervention is not an option. To ask today's urban poor to employ self-reliance alone is to ask the impossible. What's more, Wright and Devine offer a compelling argument for why fiscal spending on social policy may not actually cost Americans a single dollar in the long run and may end up saving them billions of dollars over the next century.Anyone who thinks the popular perception of the urban poor as lazy, shiftless vagrants might be a bit awry, or anyone who is open-minded enough to hear the case for helping those in need, should read this book! It will change the way you think about urban poverty forever.I would also recommend the follow up to this book "Beside the Golden Door" also by Wright et al.

Very Good Read

This Book Is a very good read, it is well written, precise, and wonderfully informative. I read this book for a sociology paper and i enjoyed every second that i was reading it. i give it two thumbs up!!.