A New York Times Notable Book of 2016 W inner of the Zócalo Public Square Book Prize On March 29, 1516, the city council of Venice issued a decree forcing Jews to live in il geto ―a closed quarter named for the copper foundry that once occupied the area. The term stuck. In this sweeping and original account, Mitchell Duneier traces the idea of the ghetto from its beginnings in the sixteenth century and its revival by the Nazis to the present. As Duneier shows, we cannot comprehend the entanglements of race, poverty, and place in America today without recalling the ghettos of Europe, as well as earlier efforts to understand the problems of the American city. Ghetto is the story of the scholars and activists who tried to achieve that understanding. As Duneier shows, their efforts to wrestle with race and poverty cannot be divorced from their individual biographies, which often included direct encounters with prejudice and discrimination in the academy and elsewhere. Using new and forgotten sources, Duneier introduces us to Horace Cayton and St. Clair Drake, graduate students whose conception of the South Side of Chicago established a new paradigm for thinking about Northern racism and poverty in the 1940s. We learn how the psychologist Kenneth Clark subsequently linked Harlem’s slum conditions with the persistence of black powerlessness, and we follow the controversy over Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s report on the black family. We see how the sociologist William Julius Wilson redefined the debate about urban America as middle-class African Americans increasingly escaped the ghetto and the country retreated from racially specific remedies. And we trace the education reformer Geoffrey Canada’s efforts to transform the lives of inner-city children with ambitious interventions, even as other reformers sought to help families escape their neighborhoods altogether. Duneier offers a clear-eyed assessment of the thinkers and doers who have shaped American ideas about urban poverty―and the ghetto. The result is a valuable new estimation of an age-old concept. A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice One of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2016 and a Staff Pick, Publishers Weekly Short-listed for Phi Beta Kappa's Ralph Waldo Emerson Award "Stunningly detailed and timely . . . In Duneier's impressive and comprehensive volume, readers will find a greater sense of the complexity of America's problem of racial inequality, as well as the urgency―practical and moral―of solving it." ― Khalil Gibran Muhammad, The New York Times Book Review "Brilliant . . . [Duneier's] concerns are born from profound sociological and historical understanding. His book is an incisive, balanced yet commendably biting account of the unfinished history of the ghetto." ―Jerry Brotton, The Wall Street Journal "[ Ghetto is] a history of the concept which also serves as an argument for its continued usefulness. Duneier is a sociologist, too, sensitive to the sting of 'ghetto' as an insult. But for him that sting shows us just how much inequality we still tolerate, even as attitudes have changed . . . Duneier’s book makes it easy to see how, through all these changes, black ghettos in America have remained the central point of reference for anyone who wants to understand poverty and segregation." ―Kelefa Sanneh, The New Yorker "A searing and searching examination of the political and cultural history at the root of this powerfully evocative and inflammatory term." ―David M. Shribman, The Boston Globe "As [Duneier's] fine book demonstrates, the meaning of 'ghetto' has changed over time, responding to political circumstances . . . His rich intellectual history of the ghetto raises important questions about how we might address the plight of its residents." ―Aram Goudsouzian, The Washington Post "Well-researched, well-written, deeply insightful, and equally illuminating . . . [ Ghetto ] should appeal to anyone interested in the African American urban experience . . . Highly recommended." ―J. F. Bauman, Choice (editors' pick) "Marvelously rich . . . Duneier’s detailed story of ideas, cities, policies and individual scholars offers a politically and historically thick alternative to the type of pseudo-objective, politically blind social science popular with . . . American policy-making elites." ―Raphael Magarik, Haaretz "Beautifully written . . . [Duneier] is our most acute observer of [the ghetto's] history." ―Mario L. Small, The Chronicle of Higher Education "Duneier's intellectual biographies sparkle with revealing details . . . Duneier offers one of the best ― and certainly the most readable ― accounts of the transformation of American sociological thinking on race. Like the most accomplished intellectual biographers, he situates his subjects in fierce debate with their contemporaries and with each other . . . [ Ghetto ] is a provocative and often brilliant history of urban sociology and public policy