San Antonio College Library

Presents a collection of brief essays on controversial topics in social issues, designed to enhance critical thinking skills of students.

How can the American social welfare system be repaired so that workers and families receive adequate protection and, if necessary, provision from the ravages of the market? This book addresses this fundamental problem and analyses how the 'privatization of risk' has increased hardships for American families and increased inequality. It also proposes a series of solutions that would distribute the burdens of risks more broadly and expand the social...

In a ringing call to churches, community leaders, and ordinary citizens, Marvin Olasky points the way to a reinvented War on Poverty and a renewal of faith-based charity. Only in recent decades have we relegated compassion to the government and lost touch with the poor. We can do much better. In Renewing American Compassion, Olasky reminds us that the original meaning of compassion is "suffering with": from this definition, he constructs an entirely...

A critique of special interests, tax practices, and invasive government agencies suggests ways to improve America through a less powerful government, more effective tax allocation, and an adjustment of attitudes on discrimination.

Introduction: digital disjuncture -- One: the first three Americas -- Two: new economy, new social contract -- Three: digital era democracy -- Four: unity and community in the twenty-first century -- Five: the politics of the radical center -- Acknowledgements -- Notes -- Index.

Offers insights on the too-often-undiscussed truths of life in contemporary America, probing such subjects as the differences between Democrats and Republicans, the health care crisis, and racism.

The November 1994 midterm elections were a watershed event, making possible a Republican majority in Congress for the first time in forty years. Contract with America, by Newt Gingrich, the new Speaker of the House, Dick Armey, the new Majority Leader, and the House Republicans, charts a bold new political strategy for the entire country. The ten-point program, which forms the basis of this book, was announced in late September. It received the signed...

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne argues that American politics is headed not toward the right but toward a new Progressive Era.

This refreshing book is an antidote to despair. For Americans skeptical about our national capacity to turn around inner-city devastation and reverse high rates of illegitimacy, school failure, and intergenerational poverty, Common Purpose offers inspiring tales and hard evidence of success on a scale that is large enough to matter. Since the publication of her 1988 book, Within Our Reach, renowned social analyst Lisbeth B. Schorr has been asking...

Health reform, a popular issue that Bill Clinton and the Democrats skillfully featured in the 1992 campaign, became the spearpoint of the most concerted attack on government in recent American history. One year after it had been introduced to acclaim from almost all quarters, Clinton's compromise plan lay in political wreckage. In this incisive account, a prize-winning Harvard social scientist draws on contemporary documents, media coverage, and...