Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism -- America's Charity Divide -- Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters

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Basic Books, Dec 4, 2007 - Social Science - 272 pages
We all know we should give to charity, but who really does? In his controversial study of America's giving habits, Arthur C. Brooks shatters stereotypes about charity in America-including the myth that the political Left is more compassionate than the Right. Brooks, a preeminent public policy expert, spent years researching giving trends in America, and even he was surprised by what he found. In Who Really Cares, he identifies the forces behind American charity: strong families, church attendance, earning one's own income (as opposed to receiving welfare), and the belief that individuals-not government-offer the best solution to social ills. But beyond just showing us who the givers and non-givers in America really are today, Brooks shows that giving is crucial to our economic prosperity, as well as to our happiness, health, and our ability to govern ourselves as a free people.
 

Contents

Is Compassionate Conservatism an Oxymoron?
15
Faith and Charity
31
Other Peoples Money
53
Income Welfare and Charity
75
Charity Begins at Home
97
Continental Drift
115
Charity Makes You Healthy Happy and Rich
137
The Way Forward
161
The Data on Charity and Selfishness
185
Notes
209
Acknowledgments
237
Index
241
Copyright

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Page 2 - They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools.

About the author (2007)

Arthur C. Brooks is President of the American Enterprise Institute, a public policy think tank in Washington, DC. He is the author of nine books, including The Battle, Gross National Happiness, and Who Really Cares. Until 2009, Brooks was the Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy at Syracuse University.

Previously, Brooks spent twelve years as a professional French hornist with the City Orchestra of Barcelona and other ensembles. He is a native of Seattle and currently lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife Ester and their three children.

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