The Truly Disadvantaged
{{short description|Book by William Julius Wilson}}
{{Infobox book
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| name = The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy
| image = The Truly Disadvantaged.jpg
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| caption = First edition
| author = William Julius Wilson
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| country = United States
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| subject = Public policy, poverty, racial inequality in the United States
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| publisher = University of Chicago Press
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| pub_date = 1987, 2012
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| pages = 320
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| isbn = 9780226901268
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The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy is a book by William Julius Wilson. The book was first published in 1987; a second edition was published in 2012. It examines the relationship between race and poverty in the United States, and the history of American inner-city ghettos. The broad-ranging book rejects both conservative and liberal arguments for the social conditions in American inner cities.{{Cite web |url=http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo13375722.html |title=The Truly Disadvantaged |access-date=2017-09-04}} In it, Wilson argues that the decline of such conditions is due to "basic economic changes which radically altered the occupational structure of the central cities," such as the withdrawal of large industries from inner cities during the 1970s.{{Cite news |url=http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1988/5/23/truly-understanding-the-truly-disadvantaged-pithe/ |title=Truly Understanding The Truly Disadvantaged |last=Sorensen |first=Jesper B. |date=1988-05-23 |work=The Harvard Crimson |access-date=2017-09-04 |language=en}} He also criticizes the architects of the War on Poverty during the 1960s, saying that they focused too much on poverty as a problem of environment rather than as a problem of "economic organization".{{Cite journal |last=Linder |first=Marc |date=1989 |title=William J. Wilson, The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy |url=https://works.bepress.com/marc_linder/42/ |journal=Clearinghouse Review |language=en |volume=23}}
Reception and impact
Robert Greenstein wrote that "The Truly Disadvantaged should spur critical rethinking in many quarters about the causes and potential remedies for inner city poverty. As policy makers grapple with the problems of an enlarged underclass, they - as well as community leaders and concerned Americans of all races - would be advised to examine Mr. Wilson's incisive analysis."{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/12/06/specials/wilson-disadvantaged.html |title=Prisoners of the Economy |last=Greenstein |first=Robert |date=1987-10-25 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2017-09-04}} In his review of the book, James Jennings wrote that "...despite its important contribution to ongoing public policy debates regarding race and poverty, it falls short of a complete class and racial analysis and still approaches the black urban poor as politically incompetent."{{Cite journal |last=Jennings |first=James |date=1988-09-22 |title=Book Review: The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, and Public Policy by William Julius Wilson |url=http://scholarworks.umb.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1077&context=trotter_review |journal=Trotter Institute Review |volume=2 |issue=3}} In 2001, Mario Luis Small and Katherine Newman described the book as "the most important publication in urban poverty over the past twenty-five years."{{Cite journal |last=Small |first=Mario Luis |last2=Newman |first2=Katherine |date=2001 |title=Urban Poverty after The Truly Disadvantaged: The Rediscovery of the Family, the Neighborhood, and Culture |journal=Annual Review of Sociology |volume=27 |issue=1 |pages=23–45 |doi=10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.23}}
References
{{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Truly Disadvantaged}}
Category:1987 non-fiction books
Category:University of Chicago Press books
Category:Books about race and ethnicity in the United States
Category:Books by William Julius Wilson
Category:American non-fiction books
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