Today I want to feature a book by New York Times reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Jason DeParle. American Dream is a classic of literary journalism. It tells the story of the millions of women sent to work as a result of Bill Clinton’s drive to “end welfare.” The stories in the book speak to the question: If as the American dream goes we live in a country where anyone can make it, why generation after generation don’t some families make it?
And here is a quote about poverty from page 328 of the book that I find particularly poignant: “At $5.15 an hour, the real value of the minimum wage is lower than in 1950 when Hattie Mae was still picking cotton.”
Today’s poverty-related book of the day is The Support Economy: Why Corporations Are Failing Individuals and The Next Episode of Capitalism by James Maxmin and Shoshana Zuboff. Here is the overview:
“Business is broken and can’t be fixed because today’s ‘managerial’ capitalism has grown hopelessly out of touch with the people it should be serving. The Support Economy explores this chasm between people and corporations. On one side are companies stuck in a century-old business model. On the other is a new society of individuals no longer content to bend to the old adversarial rules of commerce. Instead, they seek relationships of advocacy and trust that provide support for their complex lives. Unlocking the frustrated needs of today’s new individuals can unleash the next great wave of wealth creation. This will require radically new approaches to commerce and capitalism. The Support Economy provides a profound new framework for these innovations. It is an urgent call to action for consumers, entrepreneurs, investors, corporate visionaries, mavericks, public officials, and every citizen who cares about the future.”
You can discuss that book or recommend other books related to poverty, economics or humanitarianism in my World Hunger and Poverty Forums.
Today’s poverty-related book of the day is The Greater Good by Claire Gaudiani. Here is the overview:
“For over a century, the United States has stood as a beacon of prosperity and democracy, proof that big business and big dreams could flourish side by side. Yet few Americans realize the crucial role that generosity plays in keeping that fragile balance. And now, with gated communities, oppressive personal debts, shrinking government, and tax and welfare reform crusades, that essential moral glue is at risk of melting away. A leading voice for community development, former Connecticut College president and scholar Claire Gaudiani explores all these issues as she examines American prosperity from the Constitution to the New Economy bust. She traces the push and pull of the robber barons and the progressive movement, the New Deal and the postwar boom, and the Me Decade and the technology revolution, finding that altruism powerfully invests in people, property, and ingenuity. Rather than pitting the capitalists against the populists, Gaudiani brings both sides to the table to reseal this fundamental social contract and provide a blueprint for a just future. The Greater Good is a passionate, pragmatic, and, finally, optimistic manifesto for revitalizing the promise of the American economy.”
You can post comments on that book and recommend other books related to poverty or humanitarianism in the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.
Today’s book of the day is How to Make a Difference by Catherine E. Poelman. Here is the overview:
“A selfless volunteer herself, author Catherine E. Poelman offers hundreds and hundreds of ideas for would-be volunteers. Her book is filled with ways to serve, along with Internet resources, national and community organizations to contact, and books to read. Learn what it takes to become a volunteer at a hospital or a zoo, at a homeless shelter or a battered women’s shelter, in an elementary school classroom or an adult literacy program. In addition, discover dozens of ideas for simple, everyday service.”
You can discuss that book, post about other good books related to poverty or humanitarianism, and discuss poverty in general all at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.
Today’s poverty-related book of the day is Do Unto Others by Samuel Oliner. Check out the overview:
“In Do Unto Others, Holocaust survivor and sociologist Samuel Oliner explores what gives an individual a sense of social responsibility, what leads to the development of care and compassion, and what it means to put the welfare of others ahead of one’s own. Having been saved himself from the Nazis at age 12 as the result of one non-Jewish family’s altruism, Oliner has made a lifelong study of the nature of altruism. Weaving together moving personal testimony and years of observation, Oliner makes sense of the factors that elicit altruistic behavior – exceptional acts by ordinary people in ordinary times.”
The book looks inspiring to me, especially for those of us who so desperately want more unity and compassion in society. I hope to read it soon.
If the idea of altruism interests you, you may also want to read a short philosophy article I wrote in which I talk about altruism: Is Selfishness Compatible with Kindness?
If you know other good books related poverty, including those related to humanitarianism in general, please post about them in our World Hunger and Poverty Forums. Thanks!
Today’s poverty-related book of the day is First World Hunger: Food Security and Welfare Politics by Graham Riches.
Here is the overview:
“Hunger and undernutrition are widespread in many advanced capitalist societies. Hunger is now publicly acceptable despite undermining common standards of human decency and abrogating the basic right of people to adequate food as guaranteed in domestic and international law. First World Hunger examines this crisis and the politics and practice of food security and welfare reform (1980-95) in five ‘liberal’ welfare states (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA). Through national case studies it explores the nature and causes of hunger, its neglect by governments, the breakdown of public welfare, the depoliticization of hunger as a human rights issue and the failure of New Right policies and charitable emergency relief to guarantee household food security. Alternative policies and strategies of public action directed at the abolition of hunger are discussed.”
You can easily buy First World Hunger and more at discount prices from BookCloseouts.
I have decided to start a book of the day series on this blog. Each day for the rest of the month, I intend to make a post about a poverty-related book that interests me. I have not read any of these books yet. (If I had, I would have already posted about them when I read them.) I hope to read most of them eventually, but it will take me a while since they will not be the only books that I will be reading.
Better yet, I assume some people reading these posts will purchase and read one or more of the books. From an activist perspective, I think it will be a great way to raise awareness and spread information about poverty. Also, I have a relationship with BookCloseouts, so, when any of you purchase any of these books from BookCloseouts by following the links that I post on this blog, then some of the revenue will help fund this blog.
I will still make my regular blog posts too. These poverty book of the day posts will be extra. 
Anyway, today’s poverty book of the day is Loretta Schwartz-Nobel’s book, Growing Up Empty: How Federal Policies Are Starving America’s Children. Take a look at the overview:
“Growing Up Empty is a study of the hidden hunger epidemic that still remains largely unacknowledged at the highest political levels and ‘an unforgettable exploration of public policy, its failures and its victims’ (William Raspberry, Washington Post). Twenty years after Ronald Reagan declared that hunger was no longer an American problem, Schwartz-Nobel shows that hunger has reached epic proportions, running rampant through urban, rural, and suburban communities, affecting blacks, whites, Asians, Christians and Jews, and nonbelievers alike. Among the people we come to know are the new homeless. Born of the “Welfare to Work” program, these working poor have jobs but do not make enough to support their families, such as the formerly middle-class housewife reduced to stealing in order to feed her children, or the soldier fighting on our front lines while his young wife stands in bread lines and is denied benefits and baby formula at a military health clinic. With skillful investigative reporting and a novelist’s humanitarian eye for detail, Schwartz-Nobel portrays a haunting reality of human suffering that need not exist. A call to action, Growing Up Empty is advocacy journalism at its best.”
Today, I just started reading the book Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex
by Judith Levine. Not being specifically about poverty, Levine argues in the book that sex is not necessarily harmful to minors, and that trying to keep children ignorant about sex and puritanically abstinent often backfires.
So far, I have only read about two chapters of the book. In the short part that I have read, Levine points out that poverty causes many of the problems associated with sex. For example, poverty increases the rate of teen pregnancy, unwanted births, abortion, rape, sexual assault, child molestation and sexually transmitted diseases. Namely, that happens because poor children have less access to quality education and health services. Also, poverty and poor neighborhoods are conducive to violence and crime, which increases sex crime and sex violence.
While trying to hide sexuality from kids tends to backfire, poverty reduction would actually help reduce the rates of many sexual problems especially among minors.
I cannot fully recommend Harmful to Minors until I have finished reading it, but so far I like it very much.
Even if you have not read the book, you can discuss it and its topics in this thread at the Book and Reading Forums.
I just read a good article by Wendi C. Thomas in which she says that 80 percent of poor Americans have jobs.
The article contains some personal anecdotes about a few poor people. And it aims to help dispel the myth that poor people are lazy and do not want better for themselves.
Wendi C. Thomas also brings up Martin Luther King’s Poor People Campaign. Unfortunately, he was assassinate before the completion of the campaign. According to Thomas, King’s Poor People Campaign demanded more jobs with a decent wage, better unemployment insurance and higher-quality public education to prepare children for the workforce.
She also included a quote by King that is unfortunately still very relevant today:
“Instead of spending $35 billion every year to fight an unjust, ill-considered war in Vietnam and $20 billion to put a man on the moon, we need to put God’s children on their own two feet.” ~ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
We can now sadly say the same about the war in Iraq!
King’s ideas still apply very much nowadays, and so far we have left his mission utterly unfinished. For that reason, I intend to read The Last Crusade: Martin Luther King Jr., the FBI, and the Poor People’s Campaign
.
Do you know any other good books about Martin Luther King and his campaign to alleviate poverty? If he were alive today, how do you think Martin Luther King would try to eradicate the large amounts of poverty? Please post your answers to those questions and your other thoughts on the subject in this thread at the World Hunger and Poverty Forums.
I doubt you would know this: I made my first post on this blog on July 12, 2006. Since then, I have made a lot of posts with a lot of information. I have expressed a lot of my opinions and explained a lot of my ideas. I have used this blog to take the issues of poverty and world hunger off the back-burner. I have addressed many related topics, including homelessness, global warming, political corruption, education, healthcare, and more.
Over time, I feel this blog has improved, and I feel I have improved as a blogger. I plan to continue this blog for a long, long time! I hope it continues to grow, so please tell your friends about it. I hope both the blog and myself continue to get better, so please make suggestions. You can post suggestions in our World Hunger and Poverty Forums, or you can email them to me at webmaster@millionsofmouths.com.
You may wonder what caused me to make this post. Well, I have gone through the blog’s archives and picked out my favorite posts. I made a list. Check it out:
Please read some of the ones that you have not read already. If you have read them all, please tell me your favorite ones.
