John Ehrenreich – författare

Social work and social policy in the United States have always had a complex and troubled relationship. In The Altruistic Imagination, John H. Ehrenreich offers a critical interpretation of their intertwined histories, seeking to understand the problems that face these two vital institutions in American society.Ehrenreich demonstrates that the emphasis of social work has always vacillated between individual treatment and social reform. Tracing this ever-changing focus from the Progressive Era, through the development of the welfare state, the New Deal, and the affluent 1950s and 1960s, into the administration of Ronald Reagan, he places the evolution of social work in the context of political, cultural, and ideological trends, noting the paradoxes inherent in the attempt to provide essential services and reflect at the same time the intentions of the state. He concludes by examining the turning point faced by the social work profession in the 1980s, indicated by a return to casework and a withdrawal from social policy concerns.

Social work and social policy in the United States have always had a complex and troubled relationship. In The Altruistic Imagination, John H. Ehrenreich offers a critical interpretation of their intertwined histories, seeking to understand the problems that face these two vital institutions in American society.Ehrenreich demonstrates that the emphasis of social work has always vacillated between individual treatment and social reform. Tracing this ever-changing focus from the Progressive Era, through the development of the welfare state, the New Deal, and the affluent 1950s and 1960s, into the administration of Ronald Reagan, he places the evolution of social work in the context of political, cultural, and ideological trends, noting the paradoxes inherent in the attempt to provide essential services and reflect at the same time the intentions of the state. He concludes by examining the turning point faced by the social work profession in the 1980s, indicated by a return to casework and a withdrawal from social policy concerns.

In Third Wave Capitalism, John Ehrenreich documents the emergence of a new stage in the history of American capitalism. Just as the industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century gave way to corporate capitalism in the twentieth, recent decades have witnessed corporate capitalism evolving into a new phase, which Ehrenreich calls "Third Wave Capitalism."Third Wave Capitalism is marked by apparent contradictions: Rapid growth in productivity and lagging wages; fabulous wealth for the 1 percent and the persistence of high levels of poverty; increases in the standard of living and increases in mental illness, personal misery, and political rage; the apotheosis of the individual and the deterioration of democracy; increases in life expectancy and out-of-control medical costs; an African American president and the incarceration of a large percentage of the black population. Ehrenreich asserts that these phenomena are evidence that a virulent, individualist, winner-take-all ideology and a virtual fusion of government and business have subverted the American dream. Greed and economic inequality reinforce the sense that each of us is "on our own." The result is widespread lack of faith in collective responses to our common problems. The collapse of any organized opposition to business demands makes political solutions ever more difficult to imagine. Ehrenreich traces the impact of these changes on American health care, school reform, income distribution, racial inequities, and personal emotional distress. Not simply a lament, Ehrenreich's book seeks clues for breaking out of our current stalemate and proposes a strategy to create a new narrative in which change becomes possible.

The Making of a Pandemic provides a systematic account of how societal and psychological forces shaped the Covid-19 pandemic. The first part focuses on how biological and societal factors interact to create a pandemic. The second part explores how characteristics of the American economy, the American approach to public health, and domestic and international inequality combined to prolong the pandemic, hamper mitigation efforts, and arouse opposition to cooperation with public health measures. The third part examines the psychological processes that led to resistance to efforts to mitigate the pandemic and linked the resistance to right-wing ideologies. The book concludes by looking at the limits of the technical and medical reforms others have proposed to protect us from repetitions of the Covid-19 disaster and by calling for a “deep confrontation” with the societal and psychological factors that created and shaped the pandemic.

I Fronesis nr 80–81 tar vi ett brett grepp om fenomenet eliten – som vetenskapligt begrepp, som faktisk aktör och som retorisk figur. Hur påverkas bruket av elitbegreppet av dess rötter i fascistiska strömningar? Hur ser den ekonomiska eliten på sig själv och övriga samhället? Hur har högerpopulismen anammat och utformat sin etablissemangskritik? Och hur kommer det sig att medelklass-akademiker så ofta utpekas som medlemmar av en elit? Dessa och många fler frågor utforskas i numret, som bjuder på flera nyskrivna svenska texter såväl som översatta texter som är centrala på området.

Native Trees of Connecticut is a step-by-step, illustrated guide to identifying trees that addresses what to look for and shows how easily observable characteristics can lead either to an immediate identification or to determining a type.In the Nutmeg State there are 90 or so native trees. For each species the book describes the overall shape and form of the tree when it is grown in an open area, provides a detailed description and photographs of leaves and bark, indicates the habitat in which the tree is typically found, and discusses the significance of the tree for wildlife. Additional characteristics, such as flowers, buds, fruits, and others, are described and pictured when they are useful for identification.Also included is a detailed guide to distinguishing among the species of a single genus––like the four species of hickory found in Connecticut––and provides supplementary information about trees including explanations of the functions of bark and leaves, tree habitats, and a guide to estimating age. Illustrated with over 500 color images, this book is the only guide of its kind to the state of Connecticut.