Common Worlds

Reviews / Votes

Carl Maida has brought together historical, sociological, and contemporary case studies to demonstrate how members of poor minority groups cope with crises. . . . Maida's book should be welcome in urban communities everywhere. -- Bettyann Holtzmann Kevles, Yale University "This is wide-ranging sociology, public health, and local history on a grand scale. This book, with its calm and deliberative prose and in-depth look at different kinds of urban crises, can serve as a guidebook for policymakers, health professionals, and community leaders striving to repair the torn social fabric in any urban environment." -- Robert Louis Chianese, California State University, Northridge In Common Worlds, Carl Maida has laid the groundwork for a public anthropology centered in the notion of praxis. Over twenty years of fieldwork has produced a book that is ethnographic, philosophical, historical, but also action-oriented. It is a must-read for those interested in the ethnography of Southern California and the impact of the political economy on the lived experience of working people. -- Sam Beck, Cornell University Carl Maida has crafted a dynamic crossover work that is penetrating, profound and highly readable. Common Worlds contains a powerful historical narrative and a mother lode of theory - anthropological, environmental and geographical. He has worked among the public/private partnerships and the community coalitions as a critical participant observer and now tells their stories in a crisp comparative framework. This is a compelling book that takes us through hidden histories and unforeseen waters - traversing art, economics, and everyday life; providing viable answers as to how we can confront the environmental tragedies of our time; and offering a discourse of hope that will help guide us to take back the land, and the country. -- Brian McKenna, University of Michigan, Dearborn Carl Maida has written a book that does something most scholars hope to accomplish at one point in their career-successfully produce an interdisciplinary integration of a complex topic that stretches beyond one's original area of expertise.... [I]t really will engage a wide variety of curious scholars--especially those with interdisciplinary urban interests. * The Pennsylvania Geographer *