Disillusioned

"Astonishingly important.” —Alex Kotlowitz, The Atlantic Through the stories of five American families, a masterful and timely exploration of how hope, history, and racial denial collide in the suburbs and their schools Outside Atlanta, a middle-class Black family faces off with a school system seemingly bent on punishing their teenage son. North of Dallas, a conservative white family relocates to an affluent suburban enclave, but can’t escape the changes sweeping the country. On Chicago’s North Shore, a multiracial mom joins an ultraprogressive challenge to the town’s liberal status quo. In Compton, California, whose suburban roots are now barely recognizable, undocumented Hispanic parents place their gifted son’s future in the hands of educators at a remarkable elementary school. And outside Pittsburgh, a Black mother moves to the same street where author Benjamin Herold grew up, then confronts the destructive legacy left behind by white families like his. Disillusioned braids these human stories together with penetrating local and national history to reveal a vicious cycle undermining the dreams upon which American suburbia was built. For generations, upwardly mobile white families have extracted opportunity from the nation’s heavily subsidized suburbs, then moved on before the bills for maintenance and repair came due, leaving the mostly Black and Brown families who followed to clean up the ensuing mess. But now, sweeping demographic shifts and the dawning realization that endless expansion is no longer feasible are disrupting this pattern, forcing everyday families to confront a truth their communities were designed to avoid: The suburban lifestyle dream is a Ponzi scheme whose unraveling threatens us all. How do we come to terms with this troubled history? How do we build a future in which all children can thrive? Drawing upon his decorated career as an education journalist, Herold explores these pressing debates with expertise and perspective. Then, alongside Bethany Smith—the mother from his old neighborhood, who contributes a powerful epilogue to the book—he offers a hopeful path toward renewal. The result is nothing short of a journalistic masterpiece.

THE DISILLUSIONED is a ruthlessly honest memoir of a young man who writes both searingly and disarmingly about the highs and lows, the perils and promise of our times. THE DISILLUSIONED documents the struggle all too common for recent generations: yearning to find a sense of worth and a purpose to their lives against the backdrop of abuses rife in modern society and the duplicity of political systems which favour the rich and powerful despite the hollow rhetoric that promises something else. THE DISILLUSIONED encompasses three decades, beginning with the impressionable child indoctrinated with the propaganda of Thatcher's Britain and suffering sexual abuse, a lack of role models and any sense of belonging. It is a gripping story of obsessive ambition, discrimination, sex, scams, suicidal impulses, alcoholism, the search for love, loss and the quest for redemption in New Zealand. It is the author's story, but also the story of a disillusioned silent majority; the story of young people bogged down with debt and disillusionment; the story, too, of the increasing dangers facing our children in a materialistic world where family bonds and values are sacrificed for high incomes and status. "THE DISILLUSIONED is a surprisingly compulsive read about what I call the Misfit Generation - the one beguiled at first by the challenge of rational economics and then bewildered by its effects. David Scott's odyssey is to find self-worth, to discover basic human values among the detritus of modern life. At the end you can't be sure he's made it. But his story matters and he tells it with the pace and directness of a pro." - Gordon McLauchlan, writer and book critic.

Mourning the loss of core illusions and coping with the impact of disillusionment are critical issues in psychotherapy. In this informative and readable book, Teitelbaum explores this therapeutic issue in depth from a developmental, theoretical, and clinical perspective and emphasizes its particular importance in the treatment of depressed and narcissistic patients.

A teenager when she and her family emigrated to the United States, Emma Goldman (1869–1940) was so greatly affected by Chicago's Haymarket Square tragedy in 1886 that she became a revolutionary and campaigned for such then-controversial transformations in society as higher wages, the eight-hour workday, birth control, and abolition of the draft. Because of these activities, she was deported to Russia in 1919, where she was able to witness the Revolution's aftermath firsthand. Horrified by what she saw in major cities and revolted by the Bolshevik dictatorship, she left the country in 1921 and, soon after, set down her thoughts in two books — My Disillusionment in Russia and My Further Disillusionment in Russia. She wrote passionately about political harassment and forced labor inflicted upon the masses, rampant opportunism raging throughout the Soviet government, industrial militarization, persecution of anarchists, and the government's increased use of deportation as a political weapon. Her writings helped turn a large number of socialists against the Bolshevik government. Her two books have been combined in this Dover edition — a volume that will be of value to teachers, students, and anyone interested in the socio-economic problems of the early 20th century.

Scholarly interpretations of the collapse of communism and developments thereafter have tended to be primarily concerned with people's need to rid themselves of the communist system, of their past. The expectations, dreams, and hopes that ordinary Eastern Europeans had when they took to the streets in 1989, and have had ever since, have therefore been overlooked - and our understanding of the changes in post-communist Europe has remained incomplete. Focusing primarily on five key areas, such as the heritage of 1989 revolutions, ambivalence, disillusionment, individualism, and collective identities, this book explores the expectations and goals that ordinary Eastern Europeans had during the 1989 revolutions and the decade thereafter, and also the problems and disappointments they encountered in the course of the transformation. The analysis is based on extensive interviews with university students and young intellectuals in the Czech Republic, Eastern Germany and Estonia in the 1990s, which in themselves have considerable value as historical documents.

Hope for Leaders Facing Burnout and Discouragement Around the world, discouragement erodes the vitality of organizations. Visionaries often succumb to cynicism. Zealous advocates give up. Leaders coast as their passion for the cause grows cold. Grounded in research, this book is an invitation for followers of Jesus to sustain hope in long-term service. It's about moving past the false hope of idealism and the faint hope of disillusionment to discover true Christian hope. You will gain encouragement through the study of the book of Jeremiah woven throughout as the authors explore how the Lord prophetically met and sustained Jeremiah during his lifetime of faithfulness despite literally nothing going as he'd hoped. Glean further inspiration by reading the stories of Christian leaders from around the globe: Zimbabwe, Haiti, Guatemala, Poland, Palestine, the Philippines, India, Zambia, and Lebanon. For this is a moment when we need the global Church's perspective and influence. Don't give up and don't check out. These are confounding and perilous days, yet God's sustaining presence can bring joy, hope, and encouragement even amid heartache and disappointment.

Adamson argues that Marxism "teaches us how to interpret social and historical reality, and to relate that interpretation to our current political concerns."

This current volume by successful consultants to leading organizations and institutions combines two of their recent papers. The first paper, 'Disillusionment', looks at the phenomenon of illusion and disillusion in organizations. The authors believe that illusions construct us, as opposed to the commonly-held view that we create them. This is the main hypothesis in the book, which is examined with the help of examples from personal and institutional points of view. The authors claim we can learn to recognize our own illusions and learn from them, and this is the process they call 'disillusionment'. Dialogue of Lacks follows on from the first paper and further elaborates on the process that is disillusionment and discusses "lack of dialogue". 'The trudging that each of us is engaged in - over a shorter or longer distance - whilst grappling with our own illusions is a fundamental journey, intimate and unique, passing through our own construction and touching on the very essence of our life.