Please join us for the upcoming
Book Launch of Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy
by Alvin Finkel
Saturday, February 2, 2019 at 6 pm Ukrainian Centre, 11018 97 Street, Edmonton Refreshments provided by the Chilean community
In Compassion: A Global History of Social Policy, Alvin Finkel recounts stories from the beginning of human history to the present day of grassroots efforts to improve life for the majority, and especially the most vulnerable. His book serves as a counterpoint to Yuval Harari’s brilliant but unhopeful Sapiens. By zeroing in on countries on six continents in different periods, it demonstrates that struggles from below have resulted in efforts, successful to varying degrees, to produce egalitarian societies. While unsparing in documenting the inhumanity of ruling classes against which popular movements fought, Compassion traces the evolution of movements and governments that have focused on egalitarianism rather than economic growth and the societies they have constructed. In a mere 300 pages, Compassion provides a history of humanity with all its warts that emphasizes the lives of the people rather than the kings, lords, and magnates.
‘A book that manages to be simultaneously deep and global, ranging from our hunter-gatherer ancestors to the neo-liberal slash-backs of the 1980s. Who knew it was possible to write an epic panorama of the welfare state?’
– Peter Baldwin, UCLA and NYU, USA
Alvin Finkel is the author, co-author, or co-editor of 13 history books including Working People in Alberta: A History, History of the Canadian Peoples, The Chamberlain-Hitler Collusion, and Social Policy and Practice in Canada: A History. He is president of the Alberta Labour History Institute and professor emeritus of History at Athabasca University.