Disabled Policy: America's Programs for the Handicapped: A Twentieth Century Fund Report

Description

Combining history and an analysis of policy today, this book exposes the contradictions in America's disability policy and suggests means of remedying them. Based on careful archival research and interviews with policymakers, the book illustrates the dilemmas that public policies pose for the handicapped: the present system forces too many people with physical impairments into retirement, despite the availability of construcyive alternatives.

'Edward Berkowitz's Disabled Policy is the most comprehensive and thorough history of American disability policy to date, one that is sure to become the standard reference on the subject. He has unearthed a wealth of detail about the people and ideas crucial to the formation of public policy toward the disabled, and cast them in an eminently readable, lively, and probing story. Most unusual, he has succeeded beautifully in writing a policy-oriented history. The questions he asks in examining the past and the framework he then uses to construct his narrative are motivated consistently by the desire to understand how current policy dilemmas came about and what constrains their resolution.' Deborah Stone, The Public Historian 'With Disabled Policy: America's Programs for the Handicapped, Edward Berkowitz has given us a masterpiece. It is written in a clear and engaging style, superbly annotated and enriched by references to the political events of the past decades and to national figures. This book significantly elevates the level of discourse in a field that in recent years has become more widely recognised as representing a challenge out society cannot afford to minimize.' Gunnar Dybwad, Disability Studies Quarterly