Voluntarism, community life, and the American ethic /

Ogilvie (city and regional planning, Univ. of California, Berkeley) attempts to place a case study of volunteers at two New York City church-based homeless shelters into a larger, sociological, theoretical framework. He is more successful in presenting a vivid portrait of the volunteers than he is at theorizing. The study of the centers is careful and insightful, but his treatment of the community literature is superficial and selective. The author draws on the concept of moral communities (Seymour Mandelbaum, Open Moral Communities, CH, Oct'00, 38-1013) as well as the literature of communities of practice (Etienne Wenger, Communities of Practice, 1998). A final chapter that is both practical and prescriptive discusses the process of building community organizations that create community, rather than those designed to serve the community. Students and faculty interested in this issue of homelessness will find the book instructive, but those interested in larger issues in community sociology will likely be disappointed. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. A. A. Hickey Western Carolina University