The Limits of Social Policy - Softcover

"[This] is a book about the policy process itself, about the necessary shortcomings of grand proposals and the influences on policy. And, characteristically for Mr. Glazer, it is pragmatic, thorough and evenhanded ... The Limits of Social Policy will be discouraging reading for all those people - liberal, moderate or even conservative - who fondly believe that it is possible to devise and implement a national social policy that will sharply reduce poverty and distress. That is precisely why they should read it." - Wall Street Journal "The Limits of Social Policy is must reading for the domestic policy makers, regardless of party, who will presume rather rapidly after they capture the White House that their capacity to mold American society knows no bounds if only they can pull the right political levers in Washington." New York Times Book Review " This is a book about the policy process itself, about the necessary shortcomings of grand proposals and the influences on policy. And, characteristically for Mr. Glazer, it is pragmatic, thorough and evenhanded ... The Limits of Social Policy will be discouraging reading for all those people - liberal, moderate or even conservative - who fondly believe that it is possible to devise and implement a national social policy that will sharply reduce poverty and distress. That is precisely why they should read it." - Wall Street Journal

Many social policies of the 1960s and 1970s, designed to overcome poverty and provide a decent standard of living for all Americans, ran into trouble in the 1980s with politicians, with social scientists, and with the American people. Here Nathan Glazer looks back at what went wrong, arguing that our social policies, although targeted effectively on some problems, ignored others that are equally important. Glazer's knowledge and judgment, distilled in this book, will be a source of advice and wisdom for citizens and policymakers alike.