Promotional Information

A defense of affirmative action, welfare, and other liberal social welfare policies against the attacks from the new political right.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
The History, Biology, and Psychology of IQ
A Meritocratic Social Structure
A Biogenetic View of Schools and Poverty
Family Matters and Moral Values
Race Inequalities
The Assault on Education and Affirmative Action
The Political Philosophy of Elitism
The Assault on Equality
Appendix 1: Statistical Methods
Appendix 2: The Scholarship of The Bell Curve
Bibliography
Index

About the Author

PETER KNAPP, a Professor of Sociology at Villanova University, is author of works on social theory such as One World, Many Worlds (1994).

JANE C. KRONICK, Professor of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College, is a well known researcher in the area of social policy.

R. WILLIAM MARKS, Associate Professor of Biology at Villanova University, specializes in genetics.

MIRIAM G. VOSBURGH, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Villanova University, is a demographer focusing on family studies.

Reviews

?This interesting, informative, and fiery contribution to important current debates in social science concerning the explanation for human differences is an all-out attack on Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve and its exploration of the role of heredity in life achievement. Knapp and his colleagues insist that The Bell Curve serves right-wing interests seeking to benefit the richest five percent of the population at the expense of protection and equal opportunity for the rest....The authors of Assault on Equality believe that environmental conditions explain such problems as high illegitimacy and crime and that government action can remedy them. Their arguments are analytical, detailed, and determined. This is a scholarly work...It also delivers blistering denunciations of opponents, who include those its authors see as conservatives, racists, and sexists, among others. For those who agree, this book has much to offer.?-Choice

"This interesting, informative, and fiery contribution to important current debates in social science concerning the explanation for human differences is an all-out attack on Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray's The Bell Curve and its exploration of the role of heredity in life achievement. Knapp and his colleagues insist that The Bell Curve serves right-wing interests seeking to benefit the richest five percent of the population at the expense of protection and equal opportunity for the rest....The authors of Assault on Equality believe that environmental conditions explain such problems as high illegitimacy and crime and that government action can remedy them. Their arguments are analytical, detailed, and determined. This is a scholarly work...It also delivers blistering denunciations of opponents, who include those its authors see as conservatives, racists, and sexists, among others. For those who agree, this book has much to offer."-Choice