Benjamin A. Lawson – författare

How has the U.S. dealt, throughout its long history, with one of the worlds oldest problems? Although poverty has always been part of the human experience, societal reactions and responses to it have been as varied as the condition has been static. Poverty in America has its own turbulent history of causes, effects, and remedies, from debtor's prison to the War on Poverty, from Social Darwinism to food stamps. This in-depth encyclopedia covers the entire history of American poverty from every angle—historical, social, cultural, political, spiritual, and literary. How has poverty been defined in America? What has been done to prevent it? How have minority groups been affected? How has the church reacted? And what, if anything, can be done to eliminate it? Poverty in America covers these issues in vivid detail, from the colonial period to the Industrial Revolution to the global economy of the 21st century. Impactful primary document excerpts from key periods throughout American history are also included, providing firsthand accounts from all sides of the issue. A chronology of events and an extensive bibliography round out this fascinating work.

This book offers a historical analysis of landfill sites in New York City, Greater Toronto, and Greater Tel Aviv, and uses them as case studies to emphasize the international and global scale of issues concerning waste disposal and park redevelopments.New York, Toronto, and Tel Aviv are currently redeveloping giant landfills into parks to much fanfare. The park redevelopments may be seen as an attempt to erase or assuage the decades of problematic waste-disposal policy that led to the creation of such large landfills. Booster rhetoric underscores this point, such as promoting how the parks will be a “green lung” for the city. This book contextualizes these redevelopments by offering a historical analysis, providing a greater understanding of the past, current, and future potential issues. It goes on to analyze the language and media coverage surrounding former waste sites becoming park redevelopments, including how cities use art to promote their image and gain cultural relevance. By engaging with both the works of waste historians and literature on waste and discard studies, the book provides theoretical models for analyzing the role of power in municipal systems, as well as human and ecological impacts on waste. It concludes with an analysis of the features necessary for landfill parks to be successful.This book will be useful for scholars, researchers, and academics studying waste studies, the environment, cities, and sustainable development, as well as for policymakers and environmental/eco artists.Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.