Almost Home - Hardcover

Kirp, David L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691049734 ISBN 13: 9780691049731

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2000

Synopsis

For David Kirp, a gifted storyteller and journalist, the concept of community stretches beyond a cliched figure of speech to describe what happens when people make decisions that reshape one another's lives. He has collected a fascinating variety of such stories from across America to re-create the immediate experience of community--tales that signify in their particulars, giving meaning to the much bandied-about idea of civic virtue. They paint a rich picture of how, for better and for worse, Americans live together.


We meet two San Francisco families, one Nicaraguan and the other black, trying to live peacefully with each other; residents in the fire ravaged Berkeley hills, whose greed and architectural ambitions thwart attempts to build the new Eden of their dreams; parents and teachers fighting against long odds to improve the East Harlem public schools; residents of a small southern town caring for a parentless teenager with AIDS; residents of the New Jersey suburb of Mount Laurel deciding whether poor families will be allowed to live in "our town;" and neighbors choosing sides when a black teenager kills his gay white neighbor. While there are real heroes--Ethel Lawrence, the Rosa Parks of the affordable housing movement; and Deborah Meier, tireless advocate for better schools--the stories are mainly about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary events.


These beautifully written tales reveal individuals in the process of forming new alliances or falling back on familiar ones, "bowling alone" or promoting the common good. They show us, past all self-delusion, who we really are.

About this title

About the Author

David L. Kirp is Professor of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of many books, including Our Town: Race, Housing, and the Soul of Suburbia, Gender Justice, and Learning by Heart: AIDS and Schoolchildren in America's Communities. He is a regular contributor to The Nation and The New York Times. Some of the stories in Almost Home originally appeared in national magazines including The Atlantic Monthly and Harper's.

From the Back Cover

"Deftly argued, vividly and elegantly written, this collection treats the most vexed and troubling questions of contemporary American life in an engaging and approachable way. The stories not only demonstrate the weakness of the concept of 'community' as a regulating term but also point to the difficulties and the stakes of public conflicts. I came away from my first reading of this book with the sense that I had been traveling through a country far more complicated--both stranger and more familiar--than the one often alluded to in public polemics."--Todd Gitlin, New York University

"Almost Home is an excellent work of reflection and analysis about contemporary social problems. David Kirp teaches his readers with grace, wit, and fine prose."--Donna Leff, Northwestern University

From the Inside Flap

"Deftly argued, vividly and elegantly written, this collection treats the most vexed and troubling questions of contemporary American life in an engaging and approachable way. The stories not only demonstrate the weakness of the concept of 'community' as a regulating term but also point to the difficulties and the stakes of public conflicts. I came away from my first reading of this book with the sense that I had been traveling through a country far more complicated--both stranger and more familiar--than the one often alluded to in public polemics."--Todd Gitlin, New York University

"Almost Home is an excellent work of reflection and analysis about contemporary social problems. David Kirp teaches his readers with grace, wit, and fine prose."--Donna Leff, Northwestern University

Reviews

Almost Home is almost a book, but not quite. Kirp (public policy, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Our Town: Race, Housing, and the Soul of Suburbia) combines evocatively written magazine essays into a lackluster volume. These vignettes tell of people ostracized for being different, towns divided by race or class, and schools in crisis. They read well individually but lack a discernible unifying theme. Kirp's introduction and epilog mention in passing the dual nature of community ties--they may bind individuals together or restrict personal expression. However, the author does not provide an overarching analysis to link these disparate stories into a meaningful discussion of the American experience of community. Conceivably useful to those interested in the craft of essay writing; otherwise, not recommended.
-Duncan Stewart, State Historical Society of Iowa Lib., Iowa City
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Kirp, a University of California^-Berkeley professor and author of multiple books and articles on social concerns, describes the relationships Americans have with other people and their surrounding neighborhoods. Kirp has written some fascinating essays about Americans and their communities. The narratives are true stories that investigate such topics as how a small African American neighborhood fought to remain in a town where their families had lived for hundreds of years; how an orphaned, gay teenager with AIDS is shuffled between homes; how after a fire ravaged through a neighborhood, not only homes but personal relationships suffered damage; and how political policies deny intravenous drug users clean needles. Those stories are just samples of situations that occur throughout this nation. Despite the claim that all Americans are individualists, they cannot break away from their surrounding communities. Kirp convincingly demonstrates how a person's action can affect not only that person but everyone associated with that person. Julia Glynn

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691049734
• ISBN 13: 9780691049731
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 388