Volunteer Nation
Elisabeth S. Clemens’ Civic Gifts demonstrates how voluntarism, long associated with locally based efforts, has been central to the project of building a strong nation-state.
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Civic Engagement - Book Reviews
Social innovations that enrich society and enhance democratic participation
Review
Not Quite Everything
Nathan Schneider's chronicle of the cooperative movement dazzles with stories but is short on solutions.
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What’s Right with Kansas
In No Place Like Home: Lessons from Activism in LGBT Kansas, C. J. Janovy offers up progressive lessons in a red state.
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Are the Elite Hijacking Social Change?
In Winners Take All, writer Anand Giridharadas calls out the hypocrisies of philanthropists.
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Road Map to a New World
In New Power, Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms argue that power and influence are being driven by a new participatory and peer-driven paradigm.
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Winning Hearts and Minds
The road to social change begins with personal connection and human emotion, Leslie Crutchfield writes in How Change Happens.
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Turning the Ordinary into the Extraordinary
The Heath brothers' book shows how, if we pay attention and work creatively, we can elevate ordinary moments into life-changing events.
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Not Everything Has a Price
When we pay people to do things that they know they should be doing as good citizens, they tend to devalue the moral basis for acting that way.
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The People’s Budget
Participatory budgeting, which enables citizens to decide how to spend public funds, is building a more empowering model of democracy.
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When Everyone Is an Expert
In an era of instant feedback and crowdsourcing, the government misses out when it relies solely on authorized voices.