One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2001 "In this thoroughly researched and clearly written book, O'Conner offers a comprehensive look at the changing ways American experts have thought about poverty in the 20th Century... A rewarding read."
Library Journal "O'Connor provides the most up-to-date history of poverty and welfare in the US in this highly recommended [book]... Her argument is ... Read moreunique, controversial, and convincing."
Choice "Poverty Knowledge has many strengths. It is a well-written analysis by a historian with substantial experience in the not-for-profit organizations that funded and substantively influenced much of the production of poverty knowledge over the past two decades... The descriptive materials alone will make this book an essential addition to the history of the social sciences... [It] will be essential reading for historians of the social and policy sciences."
Robert F. Kelly, Contemporary Sociology "O'Connor's book surpasses previous accounts of American approaches to poverty and makes a very significant contribution to critical writing on the welfare state."
Ruth Crocker, American Historical Review "A book that should be read by everyone engaged in poverty knowledge and social policy."
Deborah L. Little, American Journal of Sociology "This deeply researched and panoramic book is intellectual history at its best."
Thomas Jackson, The Historian "A brief review cannot do justice to the richness and subtlety of this fine study... [O'Connor's] argument is on the whole deeply compelling: over the course of the twentieth century, poverty knowledge became, despite the best intentions of its liberal practitioners, a partisan tool for those seeking to control, marginalize, or dismiss the claims of the poor, not for those working to end poverty."
Sonya Michel, Isis Show Less