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  • Losing Ground

  • American Social Policy, 1950 - 1980
  • Written by: Charles Murray
  • Narrated by: Robert Morris
  • Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
  • 4.3 out of 5 stars (8 ratings)

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Losing Ground cover art

Losing Ground

Written by: Charles Murray
Narrated by: Robert Morris
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Publisher's Summary

Beginning in the 1950s, America entered a period of unprecedented social reform. This remarkable book demonstrates how the social programs of the 1960s and ’70s had the unintended and perverse effect of slowing and even reversing earlier progress in reducing poverty, crime, ignorance, and discrimination. Using widely understood and accepted data, it conclusively demonstrates that the amalgam of reforms from 1965 to 1970 actually made matters worse.

Why? Charles Murray’s tough-minded answers to this question will please neither radical liberals nor radical conservatives. He offers no easy solutions, but by forcing us to face fundamental intellectual and moral problems about whom we want to help and how, Losing Ground marks an important first step in rethinking social policy.

Charles Murray is the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He first came to national attention in 1984 with Losing Ground. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from Harvard and a doctorate in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He lives with his wife in Burkittsville, Maryland.
©1984 Charles Murray (P)1989 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Political Science Sociology Biographies & Memoirs Economics United States
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What the critics say

"Without bile and without rhetoric it lays out a stark truth that must be faced." ( Business Week)
"A great book." ( Wall Street Journal)
“A remarkable book. Future discussions of social policy cannot proceed without taking the arguments and evidence of this book into account.” (James S. Coleman, University of Chicago)

What listeners say about Losing Ground

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Audio quality could be clearer difficult to listen too at higher speeds but overall an interesting perspective

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Audio quality

Audio quality up to 1989’s standard, the year it was "taped" from what I understand, so…

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