Books, Arts & Manners: When Decency Disappears

When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, by William Julius Wilson (Knopf, 322 pp., $26)

FOR conservatives who believe that “a thinking liberal” is an oxymoron, a good three-word rebuttal is “William Julius Wilson.” A past president of the American Society of Sociology, Wilson is currently the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard. In his much-discussed 1987 book, The Truly Disadvantaged, he documented that both middle-class and working-class blacks had moved out of ghetto neighborhoods in great numbers, taking with them traditional values, positive community norms, and patterns of hard work, family stability, and self-advancement through education.

About the Author

John J. DiIulio Jr.

John J. DiIulio Jr. is a co-author of American Government: Institutions and Policies, now in its 18th edition.

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When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor, by William Julius Wilson (Knopf, 322 pp., $26)

FOR conservatives who believe that “a thinking liberal” is an oxymoron, a good three-word rebuttal is “William Julius Wilson.” A past president of the American Society of Sociology, Wilson is currently the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Social Policy at Harvard. In his much-discussed 1987 book, The Truly Disadvantaged, he documented that both middle-class and working-class blacks had moved out of ghetto neighborhoods in great numbers, taking with them traditional values, positive community norms, and patterns of hard work, family stability, and self-advancement through education.