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Quote by Barbara Kingsolver

“Back then I was still appalled that God would set down his barefoot boy and girl dollies into an Eden where, presumably, He had just turned loose elephantiasis and microbes that eat the human cornea. Now I understand, God is not just rooting for the dollies.”

Quote by Barbara Kingsolver

Work

The Poisonwood Bible

Barbara Kingsolver's 'The Poisonwood Bible' is a narrative that unfolds in the Congo during the 1960s, focusing on the Price family and their experiences under the guidance of their father, a missionary. The story delves into the complexities of colonialism, the impact of religious beliefs on personal and societal levels, and the intricate dynamics within the family unit. The novel is told from the perspectives of the Price daughters, each offering a unique and emotionally charged account of their time in Africa. more

Author

Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver

Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist known for her insightful social commentary and rich literary imagination. Her works often explore themes of environmental protection, social justice, and women's issues, and have gained widespread popularity. Born on April 8, 1955, in Arkansas, USA, Kingsolver grew up in Arkansas and Mexico, and later earned a BA in literature from Amherst College and an MA in comparative literature from Columbia University. more

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“[...] most American cities have been designed or redesigned principally around the assumption of universal automotive use, resulting in obligatory car ownership, typically one per adult—starting at age sixteen. In these cities, and in most of our nation, the car is no longer an instrument of freedom, but rather a bulky, expensive, and dangerous prosthetic device, a prerequisite to viable citizenship.”

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“As a group which believed in civic responsibility and the salutary effect of applied social science, it was natural that the WASP elite would take an interest in housing. In cities like Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and Boston, the panels of experts in the housing field invariably had a definite ethnic cast. They became certified as experts either by going to the already mentioned Ivy League universities or by getting appointed to boards of the various cities’ planning commissions, which were often descendants of local ruling class initiatives that began with the city-beautiful movement or the settlement house movement around the time of World War I. The Philadelphia Housing Association was one such group. It started off as a blueblood organization complaining about backyard privies and piggeries in South Philadelphia and recommending common-sense measures for local improvement of the housing situation, things like liens against absentee landlords to pay for repairs. All of that changed in 1937 with the New Deal housing act of that year, which established local housing authorities across the country with federal money and government authority. The various housing authorities were charged with creating master plans by staffs of “experts” of a certain ethnic (i.c., WASP) cast which was invariably not the ethnic cast of the neighborhoods which were targeted for destruction. Urban renewal as practiced in the case of Berman v. Parker meant that certain people were empowered to come up with a master plan for the cities, one that would now have the power of law, specifically eminent domain, behind it along with enormous amounts of federal money, which was made available to tear down neighborhoods where people from other ethnic groups lived. The experts could do this according to their own purportedly scientific but ultimately ethnocentric criteria of things like blight, hygiene, decay, etc. Taken together the WASP penchant for meddling in housing along with residual WASP anti-Catholicism meant bad news for places like Bridesburg and Poletown, especially when this group was empowered to act on its ethnic prejudices by federal money and a Supreme Court that was willing to abridge property rights in the interest of increased social engineering.”

“Louis Wirth made no bones about his suspicion of the groups that were traditionally known as “ethnic,” ic., the recent immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Like Stalin, his mentor on the nationalities issue, Wirth considered ethnics as a fifth column which could not be trusted to serve the interests of the ruling class. Those interests became national security issues once that elite succeeded in maneuvering America into war. In this he shared the political views of the psychological warfare establishment as well as the ethnic prejudices which undergirded them. The purpose of psychological warfare as it was resurrected at the University of Chicago in the late ’30s was ultimately ethnic. The WASP elite used their advanced communications techniques to prevent ethnic groups in America from communicating with their countries of origin but also to disrupt communications among the members of those groups in the United States as well. “At heart modern psychological warfare has been a tool for managing empire,” writes Christopher Simpson, “It’s primary utility has been its ability to suppress or distort unauthorized communication among subject peoples, including domestic U.S. dissenters who channeled the wisdom or morality of imperial policies.”