COMPASSION: A GLOBAL HISTORY of SOCIAL POLICY | Join us for the Book Launch
of Compassion:
A Global History of Social Policy by Alvin Finkel. ➔ Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 6:00 pm @ the Ukrainian Centre, 11018 - 97
Street, Edmonton. Refreshments kindly provided by the Chilean community.
Please RSVP to: finkel@telusplanet.net
| The Book | In Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy, Alvin Finkel
recounts stories – from the beginning of human history to the present day of grassroots efforts
to improve life for the majority, and especially the most vulnerable. His book
serves as a counterpoint to Yuval Harari's brilliant but unhopeful Sapiens. By
zeroing in on countries on six continents in different periods, it demonstrates
that struggles from below have resulted in efforts, successful to varying degrees,
to produce egalitarian societies. While unsparing in documenting the inhumanity
of ruling classes against which popular movements fought, Compassion traces the
evolution of movements & governments that have focused on egalitarianism
rather than economic growth and the societies they have constructed. In a mere
300 pages, Compassion provides a history of humanity with all its warts that
emphasizes the lives of the people rather than the kings, lords, and magnates.
‘A book that manages to be simultaneously deep and global, ranging from
our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the neo-liberal slash-backs of the 1980s. Who
knew it was possible to write an epic panorama of the welfare state?’ – Peter Baldwin, UCLA and NYU, USA
About: Alvin Finkel is the author, co-author, or
co-editor of 13 history books including Working People in Alberta: A History,
History of the Canadian Peoples, The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion, and Social
Policy and Practice in Canada: A History. He is president of the Alberta Labour
History Institute, professor emeritus of History at Athabasca University, and
half of the writing team of Change Alberta.
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