Best of
Poverty

1993

Beyond Charity: The Call to Christian Community Development


John M. Perkins - 1993
    This new vision rejects easy answers, stressing Christian community.

Micro-Hydro Design Manual: A Guide to Small-Scale Water Power Schemes


Adam Harvey - 1993
    Government authorities are faced with the very high costs of extending electricity grids. Often micro-hydro provides an economic alternative to the grid. This is because independent micro-hydro schemes save on the cost of grid transmission lines, and because grid extension schemes often have very expensive equipment and staff costs. In contrast, micro-hydro schemes can be designed and built by local staff and smaller organizations following less strict regulations and using 'off-the-shelf' components or locally made machinery.

To Hell with Dying


Alice Walker - 1993
    A loving remembrance of a common man whose humanity Walker makes memorable.”--Booklist “Overflowing with compassion, humor, and good sense, [it is] a fine story of deep feeling.”--Kirkus Reviews

An Inquiry Into Well-Being and Destitution


Partha Dasgupta - 1993
    Dasgupta's aim here is to offer a description of destitution as it occurs among rural populations of the poor countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America; to give an account of the forces at work which perpetuate destitution, and to offer prescriptions for both the public and private spheres of life.A central concern of the author has been to reconcile theoretical considerations with the empirical evidence that has been obtained in the several disciplines this work encompasses, including anthropology, demography, ecology, geography, and philosophy. The entire discussion is designed to provide a philosophy for human well-being that can guide public policy in poor countries. Therefore, the role of the State, of communities, of households, and of individuals is studied in considerable detail.The author reveals an empirical link between greater political and civil liberties and improvements in life expectancy at birth, national income per capita, and infant survival rates. He identifies patterns of asset redistribution that promote economic growth by raising labor productivity, and argues that democratic participation in the design of public policies is not only intrinsically valuable, but has strong instrumental virtues: it allows privately held information to be put into effective use. Dasgupta presents evidence to show that significant reductions in military budgets would free the resources needed for the satisfaction of citizens' basic economic needs, and he provides guidance for the motivation and necessary focus of governments. He also looks at the allocation of food, work, health care, education, and income across genders, age groups, and orders of birth. He explores the findings of nutritionists on the link between food needs and work capacity, and develops a language to allow the environment to be included in social policies and calculations. By covering an unprecedented range of material, An Inquiry into Well-Being and Destitution becomes required reading for all those concerned with the human situation and the plight of the destitute.

The Amnesty of Grace: Justification by Faith from a Latin American Perspective


Elsa Tamez - 1993
    In this theology, the poor, 'oppressed and believing, ' constitute the privileged locus of theology. That is to say, theology is done from their reality of oppression-liberation and their experience of God. Every great theological theme, every biblical reading, must be reexamined from that angle of vision. (from the Introduction, by Elsa Tamez

Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People


David A. Snow - 1993
    Through hundreds of hours of interviews, participant observation, and random tracking of homeless people through social service agencies in Austin, Texas. Snow and Anderson reveal who the homeless are, how they live, and why they have ended up on the streets. Debunking current stereotypes of the homeless. Down on Their Luck sketches a portrait of men and women who are highly adaptive, resourceful, and pragmatic. Their survival is a tale of human resilience and determination, not one of frailty and disability.

Shelter Poverty: New Ideas on Housing Affordability


Michael E. Stone - 1993
    --Chester Hartman, President, Poverty and Race Research Action CouncilIn Shelter Poverty, Michael E. Stone presents the definitive discussion of housing and social justice in the United States. Challenging the conventional definition of housing affordability, Stone offers original and powerful insights about the nature, causes, and consequences of the affordability problem and presents creative and detailed proposals for solving a problem that afflicts one-third of this nation. Setting the housing crisis into broad political, economic, and historical contexts, Stone asks: What is shelter poverty? Why does it exist and persist? and How can it be overcome?Describing shelter poverty as the denial of a universal human need, Stone offers a quantitative scale by which to measure it and reflects on the social and economic implications of housing affordability in this country. He argues for the right to housing and presents a program for transforming a large proportion of the housing in this country from an expensive commodity into an affordable social entitlement. Employing new concepts of housing ownership, tenure, and finance, he favors social ownership in which market concepts have a useful but subordinate role in the identification of housing preferences and allocation. Stone concludes that political action around shelter poverty will further the goal of achieving a truly just and democratic society that is also equitably and responsibly productive and prosperous.