A controversial look at how American politics has transformed the "new" poverty into a demoralization of the poor that has alienated them from the working majority, written by a workfare programs advocate and author of Beyond Entitlement. Two hardcover printings sold.

Lawrence M. Mead is associate professor of politics at New York University. He is the author of Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship (1986), and he writes frequently for Commentary, The Public Interest, and other scholarly and general-interest publications.