Thursday, May 28, 2020

The Societal Insight of Edward Banfield

By An Old Friend
Thu, May 28, 2020 8:26 p.m.
Subject: The Societal Insight of Edward Banfield


AOF: I've read The Unheavenly City, Revisited ...

I've highlighted one brief passage below.

"Banfield acknowledged without qualification the grotesque racial injustice to which black Americans had historically been subjected."

Garbage. He was making a concession too many.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for publishing this entirely insightful essay on Edward Banfield's "The Unheavenly City" (and its sequel). That book was more formative of my views on urbanism, economics, politics, race and culture than any other book I read during and after my graduate student years. In fact, I can think of only two cliche-exploding, "black swan" nonfiction books that can match it: Peter Brimelow's "Alien Nation" and Judith Rich Miller's "The Nurture Assumption."

People today need to read the "The Unheavenly City." It's as relevant today as it was 50 years ago. I've read the book and have lived it.

Anonymous said...

"Banfield was a former New Dealer who had worked on anti-poverty projects for the Department of Agriculture during the 1930s "

The man had to be in his early twenties at the time. How could he have been effective without any real life experience?