The Call of Service

Fülszöveg

obert Coles's passionate new book offers timely insight intő idealism as a deeply humán impulse. At a moment when community involvement has once again become part of the national agenda, The Call of Service sheds light on the individual ürge toward idealistic action-what inspires and sustains it, how it is expressed, and why it is so necessary to each of us and to society. This is the most personal book Róbert Coles has ever written. He has devoted much of his own life to community service, working for desegregation in the South, tutoring in ghetto areas in the Northeast, advocating for humán rights for decades. Here he recalls his own experience and his encounters over the years with other volunteers who have in crucial ways given something of themselves to others. Their stories of personal affirmation and morál purpose reveal that the motivations behind serving an idealistic cause are far from simple. From civil rights activists and charity workers, members of the Peace Corps and... Tovább

Fülszöveg

obert Coles's passionate new book offers timely insight intő idealism as a deeply humán impulse. At a moment when community involvement has once again become part of the national agenda, The Call of Service sheds light on the individual ürge toward idealistic action-what inspires and sustains it, how it is expressed, and why it is so necessary to each of us and to society. This is the most personal book Róbert Coles has ever written. He has devoted much of his own life to community service, working for desegregation in the South, tutoring in ghetto areas in the Northeast, advocating for humán rights for decades. Here he recalls his own experience and his encounters over the years with other volunteers who have in crucial ways given something of themselves to others. Their stories of personal affirmation and morál purpose reveal that the motivations behind serving an idealistic cause are far from simple. From civil rights activists and charity workers, members of the Peace Corps and the military, workers in shelters and innercity schools, we hear poignant and teliing accounts of incentives, frustrations, and rewards. Enthusiastic youthful volunteers speak of adjusted goals and unexpected breakthroughs. Older activists reflect on the priváté toll their work has taken and the need to carry on. Crossing racial, religious, and economic barriers, through gestures large and continued on backflap
continuedfrom front flap small, these volunteers movingly attest to the satisfactions that come with "something done, someone reached." To their voices Róbert Coles adds portraits of the mentors who instilled in him an appreciation of what it means to be a humanist: Dorothy Day, Anna Freud, William Carlos Williams, and his own parents. Long recognized as the preeminent authority on the inner life of children, Róbert Coles illuminates with equal wisdom our mature desire to improve the lot of others. No other writer can speak so eloquently of humán nature at its most generous. The Call of Service is an inspiring witness to the power of idealism to transform our lives. Róbert Coles is the author of more than fifty books, including the Children of Crisis series, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize, and the Inner Life of Children series, which concluded with the best-selling The Spiritual Life of Children. A child psychiatrist who teaches at Harvard University, he lives in Concord, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children. Vissza