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Communities of Sense argues for a new understanding of the relations between politics and aesthetics in today's globalized and image-saturated world. Established and emerging scholars of art and culture draw on Jacques Rancière's theorization of democratic politics to suggest that aesthetics, traditionally defined as the "science of the sensible," is not a depoliticized discourse or theory of art, but instead part of a specific historical organization of social roles and communality. Rather than formulating aesthetics as the Other to politics, the contributors show that aesthetics and politics are mutually implicated in the construction of communities of visibility and sensation through which political orders emerge.

The first of the collection's three sections explicitly examines the links between aesthetics and social and political experience. Here a new essay by Rancière posits art as a key site where disagreement can be staged in order to produce new communities of sense. In the second section, contributors investigate how sense has been constructed in the historical European avant-garde and how it is mobilized in today's global visual and political culture. Exploring the viability of various models of artistic and political critique in the context of globalization, the authors of the essays in the volume's final section suggest a shift from identity politics and preconstituted collectivities toward an investigation of processes of identification and disidentification. The specific topics engaged throughout the volume vary from digital architecture to a makeshift museum created in a Paris suburb, and from romantic art theory in the wake of Hegel to the history of the group-subject in political art and performance since 1968. An interview with Étienne Balibar rounds out the collection.

Contributors. Emily Apter, Étienne Balibar, Carlos Basualdo, T. J. Demos, Rachel Haidu, Beth Hinderliter, David Joselit, William Kaizen, Ranjanna Khanna, Reinaldo Laddaga, Vered Maimon, Jaleh Mansoor, Reinhold Martin, Seth McCormick, Yates McKee, Alexander Potts, Jacques Rancière, Toni Ross ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Terrific collection
As one interested in contemporary art and continental philosophy, this book is entirely in my line of interest.And the essays here are very interesting, covering ground from Dada to Hirschhorn to concepts of relational aesthetics.The theoretical connections throughout the works gathered here largely tie to the work of Jacques Rancière, who has the first essay in the collection.But as the introduction states, this is woven through the thinking of being with others found in Jean-Luc Nancy's works.It makes for a great approach to thinking the politics of art and aesthetics and issues of community.The collection finishes with Étienne Balibar in an interview.The whole text is highly recommended by me. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (5)

Good service
This item was in new condition and arrived in good time using the regular shipping rate.

Leña!
An informative and entertaining read that captures the essence of Latino NYC in its many and diverse manifestations, making it the rare guide that is indispensable for both natives and newcomers alike. These guys truly know their stuff. Highly recommended.

Latino Life is right on the money
Great collection of a good Latino time in the Big Apple

A real companion
In such an exciting but big city, we need guides. This guide in particular is a whole experience and an invitation to adventure. It has become my weekend companion. It has taken me to great places and has taught me tons. It is really helpful and well done.

Finally!An authentic guide to Latin New York.
For anyone who wants to discover all that Latin New York has to offer, this is the book for you.Loved it! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Three novels in one.
This is an engrossing, at times chilling, novel, almost three novels in one. The first part deals with the "ugly" sister, Hekuba, who unwittingly falls in love with Seth Strummar, the irrestible rouge who isat the heart of all three parts of this novel. The second deals withStrummar's friend, Joaquin, and becomes almost a Cormac McCathyishquest-into-Mexico story. The third part is told from Seth's daughter,Elena's point of view, and it was this third part that put me off as areader. I never connected with Elena the way I did with Hekuba and Joaquin.I also resented the short shrift given to Hekuba's death, when I had becomeso emotionally attached to her. But despite this and some minoranachronisms, particularly in the language, this is a whopping goodpage-turner which I have recommended it to others.

Poetic, stark portraits of social inequity on the frontier
I finished this book in the wee hours of the night--I couldn't put itdown.I cried at the ending.Maybe because Elena might never race again,or because Seth was trying so hard to do the right thing, or because Hekubalost so much.Most western fiction is concerned only with violence, but inthe Seth Strummar series, the author asks all of the most probing questionsof life.She certainly presents stark portraits of social inequity, yetthe books are quite poetic. The continuing metaphors of the bullfight andmacho were very effective in Breaking Even. I highly recommend all ofElizabeth Fackler's novels to anyone interested in character studiesrevolving around the great issues of life.

Poignant, exciting, true to the heart.
I loved this story.It's the most true-to-life and touching novel about friendship and family love which I've ever read.Joaquin and Seth are soul brothers.Elena broke my heart. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

A MUST READ!!
Author Seth Margolis perfectly captures the life, times, and unique environment of New York City circa the early 2000s.Watch and laugh as he describes the incredible ascent of the New York City real estate market contrasted with the simultaneous decent of the lives of the characters within it.

Fun, funny, insightful, and just plain entertaining.

What a delightful treat
From the reviews I had read and the blurb on the book jacket, I was expecting a delicious peeping-tom view of the rich and famous--a sort of Tom Wolfian treatment of the housing market and related obsessions of the movers and shakers in Manhatten.I enjoy such books for the same reason I enjoy regency novels.These novels of manners present a snapshot of a culture most of us will never experience (except in these books).From our comfortable world we can sneer at the foolish lives of these wealthy and influential people and get some satisfaction when their self-centered, materialistic pursuits end in financial and social ruin.

Unfortunately, most books of this type are like a scrumptious chocolate eclaire--lots of fluff, little substance.And, too often, after finishing one, the reader--like the diet-breaker--feels guilty, restless and unsatisfied.Because, I think, like ancient romans at the coliseum or modern television viewers of Jerry Springer's shows, we have gleefully watched the destruction of another living creature from a position of lofty and judgmental safety.We know nothing about the individuals--beyond a brief stereotypical description which plugs them into a certain social and economic strata.And we care even less.

So imagine my surprise as I discover, not only the witty dissection of these lives in the Big Apple, but a thoughtful and compassionate exploration of those lives.

Not an eclaire, but a four-course meal.Wow!And what a page turner.

I loved the way you framed the book with Lucinda's brittle narration (I believe these were the only two segments in her point of view).She becomes a modern day chorus/prophet/philosopher explaining, from her perspective,the housing market, other financial trends and the culture of a certain group of New Yorkers.

I loved Peggy and Lily and immediately cast the movie (Bette Midler and Julia Roberts).You didn't romanticize either one or hesitate to show their character flaws.But you made them human, and strong, and resilient.Lily may have fallen from the luxurious nest she'd built so pain-stakingly, but she doesn't collapse.Unlike her husband who runs away from trouble, she faces it head on and, though some of her methods are less than conventional or even legal, she survives and eventually triumphs.You don't give us any unrealistic expectations.Lily may have chosen the candy man over her exonerated Wall Street financier husband, but there's no doubt she will nudge Larry into franchising his Broadway Nut Shoppes--she's already remodeling his apartment.And he'll be a success due to her social skills--she was, after all, the biggest rain-maker for Barnett's firm.But you delve beneath her social-climbing, status-seeking, law-breaking surface and show a real person who has the courage to analyze her life and figure out what she wants.And, upon finishing the book, I am cheering for her and Larry, for Peggy and Monroe, Sophie and William and Paco, Rosemary and Guy, Mohammed and his family.And I am hoping and believing they will be just fine.

I have a collection of books that I re-read often as a special treat, knowing I will gain something new with each reading and also lift my spirits.They are all what John Gardner describes as "moral fiction" which I take to mean life-affirming.This collection includes Faulkner, Morrison, Fitzgerald, Shakespeare, Austin, Grisham, Nora Roberts, Janet Evanovich and a few others.These books make me laugh and cry and sigh with contentment.I've added Closing Costs to this particular bookshelf

Couldn't put it down!
I loved Seth Margolis's book Closing Costs. It was very funny, the plot moves along, the characters are inter-woven in a believable fashion. You can hear Margolis's sly wit throughout as he comments on the characters and trends in New York real estate and the dot com world.A very satisfying read.

"You are where you live"
I'm surprised this book hasn't been more successful, especially among real estate-obsessed New Yorkers. It's well written, fun, and has many interesting and recognizable characters, including the Master-of-the-Universe wannabe and the wicked broker.
For those of us who lived through the hopes and broken dreams of the dot-com boom, this is a fun, engaging read.

If you liked "Bonfire of the Vanities" or "A Man in Full" you'll love "Closing Costs'
If you want a highly entertaining inside look at the surreal world of New York City real estate, buy this book. The characters are sharply drawn and if you live in NYC (or have spent a lot of time there) you'll recognize most ofthem, esp. the "take no prisoners" she-devil real estate broker.

A great read that could be a great movie someday. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

I Found This Book To Be Very Clever
I really enjoyed the ambiance of Fire Island (a place I have never heard of, being a West Coast resident).Also, the plot was clever.I am now going to read Vanishing Act and hope it is just as good.It truly is a gift to write well, and this author has the gift ... Read more

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When a mysterious tycoon appears in detective Joe D's office asking for help in faking his own death, the wary private eye knows enough to refuse, but when the eager businessman turns up dead a few days later, he is forced to investigate. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very true...but not quite.
There have been many different descriptions of Costa Rica, it's people and customs, behavior and general cultural background, and this book definetely tells it right in most respects, however, it has made a small but not less important mistake in stating that the hospitable, friendly and fairly generous people's of this beautiful country are not more than lackeys of american pop culture, and loyal followers of the "american way".This can be not much farther from te truth, bacause "ticos" like to think of themselves as being nice and respectful of all cultures, and feel inclined to treat every single visitor from any country with the same ammount of dignity and attention.Proof of that is the country's most recent denial to a US policy and treaty in which the US wanted to secure diplomatic immunity to all it's representatives abroad in Human Rights related investigations.
The book does a good job at describing the country in several ways, but I guess that a real opinion about the country can only be achieved by the visitor once in Costa Rican soil... ... Read more

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South of the Clouds offers a fascinating, intimate portrait of China by telling the story of an American man who ventures into its hidden realms---romance, politics, the criminal underworld, and Tibet. As he matures from a wide-eyed student into a journalist and a seasoned observer, he develops a passion for uncovering secrets, about China and about himself.

The author navigates his way past forbidding walls to peek inside the dark corners of Chinese society, relying on a remarkable collection of friends and acquaintances who help guide the way: an embittered policeman in Xian, a gay professor in Shanghai, and a Buddhist monk in Tibet, who presides at an ancient burial ritual where the corpse is carved up and fed to wild vultures.

The Tiananmen Square massacre, people smuggling, and the Falun Gong movement are among the political and social upheavals that the author explains as he witnesses China's uncertain road toward capitalism and its place in the modern world.

Along the way, the author wrestles with his own cultural identity, his sexuality, and his spiritual bearings. He finds an erotic outlet in the Chinese "Sauna Massage" and a stirring emotional connection with Jin Xing, a brilliant choreographer and China's first openly transsexual citizen. Ultimately, he discovers the answer to lifelong questions on a mountaintop in Tibet.

Seth Faison, with a subtle understanding of Chinese culture, brings past and present events to life in a thought-provoking account of this mysterious nation and its people.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

A compelling personal journey, history lesson and travelogue
I tend to not read "personal journey" narratives because, while important for the person on the journey and people in similar situations, I find to sustain interest.
That much said, I read "South of the Clouds" while on vacation in China, and it is one of the best, can't-put-it-down books I've read in a while. Seth Faison so deftly weaves his own story with that of China that they become a rich fabric of discovery for both a person and a nation.
Faison starts his journey in China in the early 1980s, long before the country adopted its current priorities of economic openness.
His descriptions place the reader in the midst of those bleak times in a provincial city still under Mao's thrall, and from there, he serves as an enthusiastic and capable guide through major and minor events he covered as a journalist over the next two decades, including Tiananmen Square and human smuggling rings. He also provides an unflinching account of his own journey of sexual discovery.
And a capper, Faison travels to Tibet and becomes one of the rare outsiders to witness a traditional "sky burial" high in the mountains. "South of the Clouds" is worth the effort for those chapters alone.

re-read this on a trip through china
I recently re-read Seth Faison's marvellous book on a return trip through China. I was in Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai and then Hong Kong all in the space of a week. Faison's book was like a becalmed harbor that I could return to -- every time I got on a plane or settled down to bed. His crackling prose and incisive view of China and the gentleness with which he explained what is a tangled and complex place were something I looked forward to each day. It's a great book and deserves the widest possible attention.

hidden schmidden
I'm sure that with technology, there are no secrets.I give it four stars instead of three stars because people who take issue with his contradictions will want to read this.Break out the highlighter pens.I laughed when he acknowledges for the first time (and then frequently throughout the book) that Chinese women are fodder because I've heard the lengthy and boring explanations by those who refuse to admit that about themselves.Use a different color to highlight the many times he feels that Chinese have developed an "obsession for money" and that Chinese women use him to get magazines, currency exchange and see him as marriage material while they cannot afford his expat coffee or sundae.(The kinds of things he was asked for, many people would have no problem giving without the burden of the economic and racial differences between the giver and the receiver.Obtaining magazines are a big deal FOR EXPATS in China. There have been some socially retarded incidents of too much asking but I think the Chinese are better at showing when that's been inappropriate of Chinese so I think he could have been clearer about that.)

Then use a third color highlighter for the many times that he is reliant on the generosity not just material but the generosity of Chinese attention that helps him acclimate and get his job done.People and perhaps especially Chinese fail to draw the comparison that the percentage of Chinese immigrants who enjoy that thorough a level of generosity overseas is much less than the percentage of nonChinese who are helped by Chinese in China. I bear him no rancor though I can't imagine he would appreciate this review.I haven't laughed so much READING in a while.The pungent motives and unspoken assessments are not a shock and I think he's very clever and remembers that many Chinese know this so he presents them for consumption.It's his admissions that save him just as when Kip Fulbeck's narrator admitted that he wouldn't want his daughter dating someone like him.LOL.I wonder if M. Faison (French Huguenot! LOL) has ever been frustrated that Chinese don't realize how clever he is.This book is not about "dating."It's about world politics and its instruments.And his cleverness is not in his confessions of eliciting confidences but in the entire book.

A good companion to this book is Thailand Fever written from both Western and Thai perspectives (as interpreted by a Westerner apparently) with tips on how to successfully navigate the cultural misunderstandings to forge successful romantic relationships.The tone of Thailand Fever is different because the goal for the Westerner is different.I don't think that the authors of either books speak for all Westerners although Thailand Fever tends to generalize.Some expats may welcome South of the Clouds and refer to it to reinforce their criticisms; however, this book fails to explain that Asians and notably the Chinese are very good at ignoring other people and becoming invisible when they are not being appreciated or well-regarded sincerely so there is something to be said when they help you.

I'm fed up with the lack of Asian male faces in American media while Asian women are left exposed and devalued so that this kind of reporting is part of the mainstream depiction instead of just a blip.I'm calling quits on going to the movies and closely considering every American media purchase I make (including magazines) from now on.I've had it!

Amazing Journey!
Wow... I just started reading this book two days ago and I'm completely engrossed... wished i had started reading it on a weekend, in order to read it faster!!!
Having been in China just a couple of months ago, I wish I had read this before my trip. Seth Faison provides lots of information about China society, culture, history and politics without sounding too judgemental. This is one book I'm sure I'll come back to. Essential reading for these times!

Wonderful!

Faison brings us closer to the people of China and gives us an honest view of himself and how his own personal uncertainties influenced his choice of going to China and his life there.He dates a woman, who like China, has deep secrets, and he dates another who's personal choices help him understand himself.He visits the sauna massage to have a human touch and someone to talk with.

I like this sort of armchair "travel" book because it skips the tourist sites, hotel/restaurant reviews and encyclopediac history in favor of narratives about the people and the times. You will not read about the Great Wall nor Summer Palace here, and the Xian soldiers are only here because they are part of a story about real, everyday people.

These narratives are rich and memorable: the emmigrants and their familes of Fujian, a bootlegger, a sadly compromised government guide in Tibet, the slow build up to and the ensuing confusion of Tienamen Square. The sky burial, haunts me now, a day after finishing the book.

... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Southern Economic Journal, published by Southern Economic Association on October 1, 2010. The length of the article is 15963 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: JEL Classification: H2, H21, H31, J22

Citation Details
Title: The elasticity of taxable income during the 1990s: new estimates and sensitivity analyses.
Author: Seth H. Giertz
Publication: Southern Economic Journal (Magazine/Journal)
Date: October 1, 2010
Publisher: Southern Economic Association
Volume: 77Issue: 2Page: 406(28)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

Bad Congressmen Behaving Badly
This is a very well-written book.It's an alarming case study not just of greed, but of 'vaulting ambition' run amok.After reading it, I believe that Cunningham was: (a) genuinely patriotic, but (b) a deeply insecure bully, and (c) hugely incompetent.He is not a sympathetic character, yet author Seth Hettena provides an entertaining story; like a car crash from which one can't turn away, I was glued to the narrative, eager to see what bad move the characters would do next.It's also an 'easy read' -- good for airplane reading or a rainy weekend.

Feasting on the Spoils:A Must Read Book for Our Time!
Our country is in trouble.Big trouble.The amount of greed and corruption that is being allowed to run amuck these past seven years is staggering.With all of the terror mongering going on, many will turn the other way not wanting any more bad news.Do not make that mistake.

Hettena has masterfully taken a complex, convoluted and just plain confusing history and woven a fascinating and comprehensible story which helps us understand not only what happened in the case of Randy "Duke" Cunningham and his contractor cronies, Wade and Wilkes, but skillfully illuminates the reasons why.

Perhaps some of you will say they're unethical - so what?The amount of corruption and the web of complicity throughout our government and industry have reached record breadth and depth. It will not improve until the American public pays attention, understands, and demands that it be stopped.Each of us has a part in this drama.A good place to start is reading this book.

One day of glory, eight years in prison
After the Bush years are over and those Congressmen and lobbyists who have benefited from their party's patronage go to jail, (1994 was the real year of inception with the GOP takeover of Congress) it will be interesting to see who is left standing. Certainly not among them is Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the pride of the air war in Vietnam. Pin a medal to his chest and watch his life unfold.

Duke Cunningham should never have gotten even remotely high up in power as he did. Author Seth Hettena paints a "not so glorious" view of the man who came to represent the beginning of the downfall of ethics problems in Congress over the past years. Cunningham was neither cunning so much as he was a ham. His mouth got him into constant trouble and the author points out how easily a man with war hero credentials, given to emotion rather than reason and easily bought, is otherwise reduced to pulp on a national scene. At least retiring Senator Larry Craig makes Cunningham look good.

Hettena's narrative is better at the ends. The initial sting operation to get Cunningham bookended by the eventual outcome is told in gripping manner. The author knows how to write. Yet, the middle of the book sags under the weight of facts and figures. The case against Cunningham is made, but to say that he is the "most corrupt Congressman" in Washington? Ever? Certainly Tom DeLay will receive that mantle. Or others about whom we don't know. It's still early.

Seth Hettena's book is good, but not great. It fills in some pieces along the corruption puzzle line and a title less blaring would have made for a more solid read. I hope this talented author writes another book about Congressional life in Washington before long. Go higher up, this time!

A fascinating and sad tale all in one
"Spoils" paints not only an amazing story of corruption but a fascinating character study in how the sense of entitlement and greed can take over the human spirit.You really can't make this "cast of characters " up and the story reads like an unbelievable true-crime novel.

The other scary part is, Duke and his "friends" really didn't try to hide any of their corrupt actions and it went unchecked for years.It makes you think what our "smart" politicians are doing to keep their secrets from coming out?

a lesson in current political corruption
The author, in a very vivid language, tells us a lot about what is happening in Washington.
I wish every American could read this book to realize what really is happening to our tax dollars because of all the political corruption that exists. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Review of Metaphysics, published by Philosophy Education Society, Inc. on June 1, 1998. The length of the article is 1611 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Bow and the Lyre: A Platonic Reading of the 'Odyssey.'
Author: Martin Sitte
Publication: The Review of Metaphysics (Refereed)
Date: June 1, 1998
Publisher: Philosophy Education Society, Inc.
Volume: v51Issue: n4Page: p911(3)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

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Chapters: Frederick A. Schroeder, Seth Low, Alfred C. Chapin, David A. Boody, Henry Cruse Murphy, Martin Kalbfleisch, Alfred M. Wood, George Hall, John W. Hunter, Daniel D. Whitney. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 35. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Frederick A. Schroeder (March 9, 1833December 1, 1899) was an American industrialist and politician of German descent. As mayor of Brooklynbefore the city's merger with New Yorkand New York state senator, Schroeder earned a reputation for his fight against the political machine of the Brooklyn ring and for more efficient city government. Frederick A. Schroeder was born in Trier, Germany. His father Michael Schroeder was a merchant who later worked as a surveyor. From 1841, Schroeder was a pupil of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Gymnasium in Trier, one of Germany's oldest institutions of secondary education, from which Karl Marx had graduated in 1835. Schroeder's academic achievements, however, were poor. In 1848, he dropped out of the school. In the same year, Schroeder's mother, Salomé née Abel, died. One year later, Schroeder, together with his father and two sisters, left Trier and emigrated to the USA. Frederick A. Schroeder's oldest brother stayed in Germany, but joined the rest of the family a few years later. The decision of the Schroeder family to leave Germany was linked to the events of the revolution of 1848. Michael Schroeder seems to have sympathized with he democratic cause. The family arrived in the USA on May 10, 1849 and settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Jupiter throwing a bolt of lightning, package label for Jupiter Cigars, a brand marketed by the firm of Schroeder ... Read more

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Nothing New Under the Stars and Stripes
Dr. Rockman's subtitle is an accurate disclosure; this is indeed a "brief history", a mere 28-page introduction to a selection of 25 documents. That brevity is all to Dr. Rockman's credit! His introduction is succinct and lucid. In it, he summarizes, with concise impartiality, the diverse thoughts about poverty and welfare expressedin the early years of the USA, beginning with the climate of opinion in England and its colonies in the century prior to the American Revolution. Many readers, I suppose, will be surprised that "welfare" and welfare reform were even under discussion in the early Republic, but the main lesson of Dr. Rockman's research is that neither the needs of the poor nor the means of assistance have changed much in the 220-some years of constitutional government. The documents that Dr. Rockman has selected, with a few modernizations of syntax, would serve just as well to express the platforms of both political parties today. A few of them would serve, indeed, to express the more radical positions advocated by ardent liberals and fervid reactionaries.

Rockman's introduction is so 'fair and balanced' that it could serve as a primer for all Americans interested in welfare reform. I'd love to see it printed as a broadside and distributed at rallies for and against President Obama's proposals. The documents, I'm afraid, make rather dry reading unless the reader is actively investigating their subject, either as a historian or as an advocate of reform.

Here are a few tidbits from Dr. Rockman's intro:

"Poverty was also a very real problem [in the Federalist era] for public officials, political thinkers, and beleaguered taxpayers... In Salem, Massachusetts, for example, expenditures on the poor accounted for neary 50 percent of the town's 1816 budget."

"In 1830, two thousand New Yorkers spent time in the city's almshouse, while another three thousand families received outdoor relief. Roughly ten percent of the city's population tapped into the public welfare system." ['Outdoor' relief refers to welfare assistance outside any institution such as the almshouses of that era, or the homeless shelters of today. The demographics of poverty in New York in 1830 were astonishingly similar to the present; most recipients were truly needy - the infirm of body or mind, orphans and the aged, mothers and children without male support, and immigrants, especially Irish, unable to find a niche in the economy that paid well enough to sustain them. Just like today, African-Americans were disproportionately poor, and in the same vicious circle, their poverty was stigmatized as the sign of their inferiority. As Billie Holliday sang, "Them that's got shall get; them that's not shall lose."]

"The rhetoric of moral reform offered one explanation: The poor were themselves to blame. Decrying the sinfulness of American society, moral reformers created a powerful stereotype of the typical relief recipient. ... It also became easier for prosperous urban residents to criticize the poor because they were increasingly strangers to one another. Whereas the rich and poor rubbed elbows in the mixed neighborhoods of colonial-era cities, the early republic witnessed the emergence of working-class districts like the infamous New York slum, Five Points. Residential segregation made it easier to depict the poor as different and defective. [Oh boy, does that sound familiar!] As moral reformers circulated tehir reports of urban vice throughout the country, rural Americans were confirmed in their antipathy towards cities and their inhabitants."

" ... local and state governments administered a network of relief services that ultimately kept most poverty-stricken Americans from perishing in the streets. Itw ould be a mistake to imagine some moment in the national past when the private efforts of kin, clergy, and charities alone fulfilled the needs of impoverished Americans."!!!!!

"In many regards, early republic welfare reform marked an effort to reconcile the political inheritance of the American Revolution with the new social realities of capitalism." [Now there's some unfinished business!]

Ultimately, the impact of Dr. Rockman's essay is disheartening. Nothing has changed in the terms of debate, no consensus has been approached, the gap between the beneficiaries of those 'new realities of capitalism' and the victims of it has opened ever wider, and the poor are still with us.]

read the original source documents
Yes, Rockman just presents a brief history text. But the original source documents are the main attraction. They let the modern reader grasp some of the issues of welfare, as they were then perceived, for better or worse, by various contemporary reformers.

A common theme is the idea that able-bodied people be expected to perform some labour, in return for welfare charity. Conversely, it was also acknowledged that those physically unable to work should be cared for, albeit in typically a very minimal fashion. By the standards of those times and ours. ... Read more