Here’s a hierarchical picture of the books I’ve been reading about poverty during the last nine months. Left-right position means nothing. Vertical row, however, indicates quality.
Top row: These are the books that deeply changed the way I think about poverty. Whether or not I fundamentally agree with the work, I learned fruitful new ways of looking at the facts. The big tan book with the faded spine is The Children of Sanchez by Oscar Lewis.
2nd row: These are highly informative books. While they taught me nothing fundamental, the author shares vast knowledge about poverty with the reader. Many of them begin and end with dogmatically ideological chapters, but the rest of the book remains well-crafted research.
3rd row: These books are just OK. They have some new details about poverty, but not much more.
Bottom row: These are the self-righteously uncurious books. They helped me understand how specific authors preach to their respective choirs about poverty. They taught me next to nothing about poverty itself.
Yes, I know that many of the books in my third row are “classics.” I’m happy to concede that they may have been great in their day. Unfortunately, classics in the third row haven’t aged well. Modern researchers can safety skip them.
P.S. Needless to say, there were a few close calls. I rounded down.
P.P.S. If the book titles look illegible, click here and zoom in.
READER COMMENTS
Jason S.
Oct 8 2019 at 11:24am
Where’s Losing Ground?
Daniel Klein
Oct 8 2019 at 7:23pm
A remarkably great blog post, this.
Thanks Bryan, sharing with my sociologist wife.
JFA
Oct 9 2019 at 9:30am
I’d also recommend Matthew Desmond’s Evicted. Great ethnography in Milwaukee. His recommendations on housing policy are non-sense, but his interviews and observations comparing housing insecurity in white and black neighborhoods is fantastic.
Todd Ramsey
Oct 9 2019 at 9:45am
Poverty has no causes. Wealth has causes.
Fred
Oct 9 2019 at 10:49am
Which of your views were changed? Were these changes big reversals of previous positions or small shifts that tipped the scales?
Aaron Gertler
Oct 9 2019 at 9:20pm
The rightmost book on the top shelf looks like it has the title From Prosperity to Charity, but I can’t find a book by that title on Google. What’s the actual title?
(Also, this is a beautiful way to format a book list.)
sourcreamus
Oct 10 2019 at 12:58pm
The title is From Prophecy to Charity.
Michael Pettengill
Oct 10 2019 at 6:52am
The book I want to see is focused on creating the customer base that both local small businesses and global businesses want.
Do businesses want as customers only those living in rural Red America, or Africa, …, ?
Or do businesses want all customers to be like those buying Tesla high performance cars, anxious to buy both the Tesla pickup truck and then the new Roadster, to add to their existing Model 3 and Model X. Plugged into the charger in their garage powered by solar roof and whole house battery backup.
I know the fastest growing retail segment is the dollar stores who cater to customers who can’t spend more that $20 on food for 3 people for several days, paid mostly with SNAP, but those can’t be the customers most businesses want.
Who ensures customers spend a lot buying from businesses?
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