Amazon Resale
Buy new:
-80% £3.99
£4.61 delivery 24 - 31 December
Dispatches from: Bill & Ben
Sold by: Bill & Ben
£3.99 with 80 percent savings
RRP: £19.99
£4.61 delivery 24 - 31 December. Details
Only 1 left in stock.
££3.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
££3.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Delivery cost, delivery date and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Dispatches from
Bill & Ben
Dispatches from
Bill & Ben
Sold by
Sold by
Returns
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
For the 2024 holiday season, this item if purchased between November 1 and December 25, 2024 can be returned until January 31, 2025 or within 30 days from receipt (whichever is later).
Returns
Returnable until Jan 31, 2025
For the 2024 holiday season, this item if purchased between November 1 and December 25, 2024 can be returned until January 31, 2025 or within 30 days from receipt (whichever is later).
Payment
Secure transaction
Your transaction is secure
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
Payment
Secure transaction
We work hard to protect your security and privacy. Our payment security system encrypts your information during transmission. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others. Learn more
£1.24
Ships from UK in 48 hours or less (usually same day). Your purchase helps support Sri Lankan Children's Charity 'The Rainbow Centre'. Ex-library, so some stamps and wear, but in good overall condition. 100% money back guarantee. We are a world class secondhand bookstore based in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom and specialize in high quality textbooks across an enormous variety of subjects. We aim to provide a vast range of textbooks, rare and collectible books at a great price. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions. We provide a 100% money back guarantee and are dedicated to providing our customers with the highest standards of service in the bookselling industry. Ships from UK in 48 hours or less (usually same day). Your purchase helps support Sri Lankan Children's Charity 'The Rainbow Centre'. Ex-library, so some stamps and wear, but in good overall condition. 100% money back guarantee. We are a world class secondhand bookstore based in Hertfordshire, United Kingdom and specialize in high quality textbooks across an enormous variety of subjects. We aim to provide a vast range of textbooks, rare and collectible books at a great price. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions. We provide a 100% money back guarantee and are dedicated to providing our customers with the highest standards of service in the bookselling industry. See less
£4.02 delivery 30 December - 16 January. Details
Only 3 left in stock.
££3.99 () Includes selected options. Includes initial monthly payment and selected options. Details
Price
Subtotal
££3.99
Subtotal
Initial payment breakdown
Delivery cost, delivery date and order total (including tax) shown at checkout.
Dispatched from and sold by Phatpocket Book Shoppe.
Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet or computer – no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Follow the authors

Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Future of Community: Reports of a Death Greatly Exaggerated Paperback – 20 Oct. 2008

4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings

{"desktop_buybox_group_1":[{"displayPrice":"£3.99","priceAmount":3.99,"currencySymbol":"£","integerValue":"3","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"99","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"zwcQbtmBHjZUDhOgfhBOEUCxXeEVhkOhgIfxHSL8gH5ftzR8LhuXkgT%2F4UnQbt%2FgKoOFb%2F%2FhZzfP2QNJtGox%2BmrtHgyYJqhERzqItE3t1tJIBV3R8Kc%2BWgEblEKRWQqdepceMSJ8tnmfumPhsByuXl624o674CzHeABY%2Bgh8%2Bh069Kp2bLqtQApdv1hdwts5","locale":"en-GB","buyingOptionType":"NEW","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":0}, {"displayPrice":"£1.24","priceAmount":1.24,"currencySymbol":"£","integerValue":"1","decimalSeparator":".","fractionalValue":"24","symbolPosition":"left","hasSpace":false,"showFractionalPartIfEmpty":true,"offerListingId":"zwcQbtmBHjZUDhOgfhBOEUCxXeEVhkOht8CCIhXzCMHBAJsLecEljbe4a0Su5vj7b0%2B%2FBlzRBWPFx8Zsoe8Zi2gRX9lcSdQXe8XOLMW4j5BSZbavzGuO9uW5cLBkiC%2FizSIQw7f6O1bw7B83jrO8tw4HOJmhD6Zs5ZHVBuCrWATpx%2FTiQ%2ByL6g%3D%3D","locale":"en-GB","buyingOptionType":"USED","aapiBuyingOptionIndex":1}]}

Purchase options and add-ons

'The Future of Community is a much need challenge to the complacent and flabby orthodoxies currently dominating the debate. It asks all the right questions. . . . Suggesting compelling answers, this book will lift the communities debate to another level.' Julian Baggini, philosopher and author of 'Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind' We are constantly being told that communities are under threat, that we are losing a 'sense of community'. This book finds that the notion of community in Britain is actually threatened by the very thing intended to protect it; relentless government and third party interventions bent on imposing their own forms of social cohesion on the population. There is no doubt that modern societies, underpinned by a ruthlessly competitive and individualistic economic system, have undermined ties of family, solidarity and commonality. However, when an idea of community is articulated it is almost invariably along conservative and reactionary lines - with unelected spokespersons unquestionably accepted as 'community leaders', and with formal contractual relationships taking the place of 'traditional' social order. The short, punchy articles in this book criticise attempts by the state and other agencies to correct the so-called collapse of communities. This book is for students and citizens looking to get beyond the hysterical rhetoric of the government and media to find out about the real communities of the 21st century.

Product description

Review

'The Future of Community is a much-needed challenge to the complacent and flabby orthodoxies currently dominating the debate. It asks all the right questions: What are communities? What's so great about them? How do they really thrive? How much can politics, architecture, technology or voluntary work destroy or help sustain them? What are the unintended consequences of well-intentioned but misguided attempts to bind society more closely? By asking these questions and often suggesting compelling answers, this book will lift the communities debate to another level.' --Julian Baggini, author of Welcome to Everytown: A Journey into the English Mind

'This powerful book is an alternative to the tradition of swansongs to lost communities. It shows that official and semi-official 'community creators' can only construct fragile pretend communities that often reveal their deep distrust of citizens. It argues that, if ordinary people are left alone by those who think they know what's best for them, the possibilities of human co-operation and the building of new communities are greater than ever.' --Professor Dennis Hayes, Oxford Brookes University, co-author of Basildon: The Mood of the Nation

About the Author

Dave Clements works as a policy adviser in children's social care. He has written widely for publications including the Guardian, spiked-online and Community Care Magazine. He is the co-editor of The Future of Community (Pluto, 2008).



Alastair Donald is researching Urban Systems and Metropolitan Design at the Martin Centre for Architectural and Urban Studies, University of Cambridge. He is co-editor of The Future of Community (Pluto, 2009) and The Lure of the City (Pluto, 2011).



Martin Earnshaw was a convenor of the 2006 Future of Community conference, held at Central St Martins. He is co-editor of The Future of Community (Pluto, 2008).



Austin Williams is author of The Enemies of Progress (Societas, 2008) and co-editor of The Future of Community (Pluto, 2009) and The Lure of the City (Pluto, 2008). He is the founder of ManTownHuman, director of the Future Cities Project and convenor of the infamous 'Bookshop Barnies' book discussions.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Pluto Press (20 Oct. 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 208 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0745328164
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0745328164
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 12.7 x 1.32 x 19.69 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
3 global ratings

Review this product

Share your thoughts with other customers

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 April 2018
    This was an encouraging book to read.
  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 August 2009
    This book provides a much-needed critique of top-down political strategies to "heel our broken Britain", at the same questioning the extent to which a sense of community has actually broken down. There are undoubtedly problems, most clearly illustrated for me in the reluctance of adults to discipline young people in public (or to back me up on the bus when I've tried to discipline them). The government response to both real and perceived problems ranges from repressive legislation such as ASBOs to strategies to "engage" communities through volunteering, and heeling our "vulnerable" selves (and in the process shifting the blame from the social to the individual), or re-designing public space. However, as is argued, while the desire to engage communities seems sensible, the strategies on offer are often limited and patronising. Distrustful of grassroots community associations, the authorities only want us to engage on their terms. But devoid of a political vision of the good society they want to engage us in, this either ends up as engagement for its own sake, or, as some writers' point out, more to cohere the elite themselves. And no matter how innocuous state engagement strategies can seem, there's also often a level of coercion involved, as the desire to improve "wellbeing" inevitably leads to the politics of behaviour. However, all is not doom and gloom, as the positive experience of Brazilian immigration into the small Galway town of Gort shows, despite elite fears of the inability of people to interact normally left to their own devices; and as people's reaction after the 7/7 London Bombings shows "the capacity of individuals to take responsibility for themselves and to make common cause with others ... remains, and often asserts itself even under the most difficult circumstances."

    This is an accessible and enjoyable read, made more so by being able to debate it with joint-editor Dave Clements at Manchester Salon earlier in the year. The 14 self-contained chapters (plus intro and conclusion) analyse specific but overlapping aspects oft he debates around the contemporary sense of loss of community; providing a great introduction to its subject, yet at the same time offering important insights into something that affects us all in one way or another. Communities may not be in great shape, but their far from dead.
    One person found this helpful
    Report
  • Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 July 2011
    This book is of general interest as well as being useful and informative reading for researchers interested in this field. Although published 3 years ago, it touches on very topical issues - that of David Cameron's "Big Society" and Boris Johnson's "Team London".

    The book sets out to challenge current perceptions of community, the loss of a sense of community and the idea that community is inherently a good thing.

    The book is made up of 4 Chapters each containing a selection of short essays from different contributors. Contributors to the book come from a diverse range of backgrounds and their work derives from their interest in the Future of Community Festival organised by the Future Cities Project.

    The barely disguised cynicism and humour of the Introduction to the book gets the reader interested. The book is well structured. Each of the 4 chapters has a specific focus around separate notions of community: In Search of Community, Constructing Communities, Communities in Flux, Undermining Communities. The short essays within each chapter are easy to read and digest and in most cases illustrate their points very clearly. Each essay critiques the way in which various political interventions and/or manipulation and policies, in their effort to promote community are, in their view, actually undermining communities and individuals within them.

    After reading this book, the reader is left with an overriding sense of "Big Brother" . There are several arguments put forward to support this:- namely that there is now a dependency on authority which is preventing people in communities from managing their own affairs as they did in the past; that Policy makers have effectively disenfranchised individuals and communities by creating a culture of fear (CRB's, CCTV, ASBO's) and in so doing have undermined the role of the adult in communities which has in turn led to managing rather than socialising young people; that even architects and town planners in their efforts to create communities through their design of public spaces and buildings are in fact undermining the very notion of real community.

    The book is very thought -provoking, it deconstructs the impact of numerous government initiatives and the efforts being made to re-engage individuals into community life. It is being suggested that these interventions are in fact hampering individuals from having the freedom to make their own decisions as they are being manipulated into regaining a sense of community by policy makers thus negating the very idea of communality. However, in order that we do not lose all hope of ever being able to manage our communities without government "support", the book does cite two real examples of healthy, well functioning communities that appear to have survived precisely because of the lack of intervention from policy makers and makes the very good point that the political class often ignore the fact that people have " a natural propensity for friendship"(p148)

    The topic of "community" has been well covered in this book and provides a good insight into the theory behind this subject. It is a very good starting point for those wishing to engage in a wider debate on this subject, that is to say one which is more critical of the arguments being advanced by the contributors to this book.
    As a newcomer to this topic, I really enjoyed reading this book. I found myself agreeing with a lot of its content and look forward to reading the counter arguments which will surely follow.