Screen LibraryThe poverty of the world : rediscovering the poor at home and abroad, 1941-1968 /
"The Poverty of the World explores the origins of a conception of global poverty in 20th century American thought, politics, and culture. Following a group of American intellectuals, policymakers, and activists-John Collier, Oscar Lewis, John Kenneth Galbraith, Michael Harrington, and Sargent a...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Oxford University Press,
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| Publisher Address: | New York, NY : |
| Publication Dates: | [2023] |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
"The Poverty of the World explores the origins of a conception of global poverty in 20th century American thought, politics, and culture. Following a group of American intellectuals, policymakers, and activists-John Collier, Oscar Lewis, John Kenneth Galbraith, Michael Harrington, and Sargent and Eunice Shriver, among others-who came into contact with mass poverty because of the profound reshuffling of the international system after 1945, this book argues that these liberals worked to advance a vision of American power in the world that put poverty-fighting at its center"-- "In The Poverty of the World, Sheyda Jahanbani brings together the histories of United States foreign relations and domestic politics to explain why, during a period of unprecedented affluence, Americans rediscovered poverty and supported major policy initiative to combat it. Revisiting a moment of triumph for American liberals in the 1940s, Jahanbani shows how the United States's newfound role as a global superpower prompted novel ideas among liberal thinkers about how to address poverty and generated new urgency for trying to do so. Their sense of responsibility about deploying American knowledge and wealth as a beneficent force in the world, produced such foreign aid programs as the Peace Corps. Drawing on a wide variety of archival material, Jahanbani reinterprets the lives and work of prominent liberal figures in postwar American social politics to show the global origins of their ideas. By tracing how American liberals invented the problem of 'global poverty' and executed a war against it, The Poverty of the World sheds new light on the domestic impacts of the Cold War, the global ambitions of American liberalism, and the way in which key intellectuals and policymakers worked to develop an alternative vision of United States empire in the decades after World War II"-- |
| Carrier Form: | xvii, 374 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [281]-357) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780199765911 019976591X |
| Index Number: | HC79 |
| CLC: |
F113.9 F171.26-01 |
| Call Number: | F171.26-01/J251 |
| Contents: | Introduction : "The world's problem in miniature" : global poverty in the American century --"This world-wide need" : John Collier and the origins of the global war on poverty -- "Not modern men" : Oscar Lewis's theory of global poverty -- "The only war we seek" : discovering world poverty and building an empire of affluence -- "Challenge to affluence" : promoting poverty-fighting as the national purpose -- "The United States contains an underdeveloped nation" : world poverty comes home -- "One global war on poverty" : building a volunteer army for the empire of affluence -- "Living poor" : representing the global war on poverty -- Conclusion : Neither peace nor honor won : retreat in the global war on poverty. |