Social Engineering is a landmark attempt to develop both theory and a paradigm for planned social action. In this collection of articles, Podgórecki's work is a linchpin for debate among social policy practitioners and theorists from Europe and North America. Their studies span a wide spectrum: Nixon and the Watergate scandal, Jaruzelski's Martial Law in Poland, Soviet myth-building, the Canadian anti-smoking campaign, earthquake planning, native land claims, "infoglut," and self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet these diverse analyses clearly support and enhance one another along carefully defined themes of guided social action. Social Engineering is an important addition to the shelves of public policy libraries and will be as illuminating to governments, corporations, policy consultants and special interest groups as it is to theorists.

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Rob Shields is the H.M. Tory Chair in the Departments of Sociology and Art and Design at the University of Alberta. He is co-editor of the journal Space and Culture, and his most recent works include What Is a City? Rethinking the Urban after Katrina (ed., 2008) and Building Tomorrow: Innovation in Construction (ed., 2005).

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