Community organization : theory and priciples

Theory underlying community planning services for human welfare and the principles involved in the understanding and use of the community organization process have been relatively neglected in professional literature. Practitioners in social work, as in other related human service fields, have been too much pre occupied with urgent action to devote themselves seriously to systematic analysis. Here, happily, at long last, is a competent and comprehensive contribution, solidly constructed and built upon substantial philosophical and social scientific foundations. It dis plays the further advantage of being comparative, thereby avoiding the provincialism of a particular geography, the parochialism of a particular history, and the professionalism of a particular profession.

Twice now, in preparation for this Introduction, I have read the manuscript of this penetrating, mature, and provocative volume. Twice also, during its reading, there has echoed and reëchoed in my mind a single line contained in T. S. Eliot's Two Choruses from "The Rock": "Where is the Wisdom we have lost in knowledge?" If wisdom means unity of knowledge, a discriminating selection and integration of relevant scientific findings, and the organization of such knowledge in relation to clearly delineated values that place human dignity and destiny central in the life process, then without question the author of this book has escaped the limitations of mere erudition.