What's Wrong with the Poor?

“A fascinating and disturbing study of how psychology created an unflattering and close to insulting picture of the poor. . . . A superb, groundbreaking study. Excellent. Essential. All levels/libraries.” — CHOICE

“Should be read by any scholar of American post-war history seeking better to understand ‘the risks of using seemingly neutral theories of child development and mental health in attempts to address social problems’ (p. 175).” — Social History of Medicine

“An important contribution . . . [and] a valuable resource.” — Journal of Southern History

“One of this book’s many strengths is its recognition that the war on poverty was really a war on what well-meaning liberals imagined poverty had done to the lives of the poor.” — Bulletin of the History of Medicine

“Address[es] the role of mental health experts in shaping public policy in twentieth-century America.” — Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences

“This book is an impressive feat and is filled with revealing connections. Raz provides a model for exactly the kind of multidisciplinary look we need to understand these critical issues.” — Barbara Beatty, Wellesley College

“While there have been histories of the War on Poverty and programs such as Head Start, none has focused as clearly as Mical Raz on the ideological underpinnings of these policy initiatives. That experts and policy makers in the 1960s ignored the role of poverty and its consequences is suggestive of their reluctance to raise an issue that would have led to major struggles. In this clear and coherent work, Raz makes a significant contribution to this era and to its current implications.” — Gerald N. Grob, Rutgers University

“What’s Wrong With the Poor? is required reading for anyone who wonders why we cut food stamps, or close inner-city schools, or promote income disparities between the haves and the have-nots. As Mical Raz brilliantly and passionately shows, these and other injustices result, not because ‘the poor’ lack initiative or foresight. Instead, they reflect stigmatizing, intransigent, and oft-racialized assumptions about ‘deprivation’ that are embedded into structures of mass-psychology and common sense. What’s Wrong With the Poor? is a vital, important book that will change the ways we think about economic inequality and the logics and rationalizations that support it.” — Jonathan M. Metzl, MD, PhD, author of, The Protest Psychosis