Katherine van Wormer, Introduction to Social Welfare and Social Work: The U.S. in Global Perspective.

Katherine van Wormer, Introduction to Social Welfare and Social Work: The U.S. in Global Perspective. Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole, 2005. $76.95 paperback.

Social work is, increasingly, an international profession. The pressures of globalization exacerbate social problems everywhere as well as connect those working to alleviate human suffering in the global community. As such, international social work has in recent years become a new subfield within the discipline. However, it is too often treated as an additional field of study, outside of traditional social work, instead of providing a contemporary perspective touching each one of social work's populations, policy concerns, and values. Social work's relevance to today's most pressing issues requires a broadening of the scope of the field.

This book is, in part, an update of the author's earlier book, Social Welfare: A World View and a response to recent dramatic international events impinging upon the welfare of vulnerable populations. It is a welcome continuation of her international refashioning of the basic social work textbook. Part One, Social Welfare: Structure and Functions, includes excellent conceptual definitions, an examination of American values that shape policy choices contrasted with mainly Scandinavian alternatives, and broad discussions of world inequality through the lens of globalization. Van Wormer's international analysis of social problems reveals the global connections of oppression. In the human rights chapter, van Wormer blends domestic and international social issues together through a discussion of social work's role in working for justice. Part Two, Social Work across the Life Cycle, deftly incorporates environmentalism, social psychology, and spirituality into a human behavior and the social environment framework. The last few chapters on child welfare, health and mental health, and the elderly read more like a standard textbook, despite including a range of international children's issues like children soldiers and comparative health care policies including Cuban rural health care.

Timely as it is comprehensive, van Wormer's book addresses questions such as what is social work's relevance to the causes of and responses to 9/11. The core strength of this book is its attention to international issues and how they relate to social work. Although the history and policy areas are necessarily short on technical details, the author provides a wonderful synthesis of domestic issues and global concerns linked within the rubric of familiar social work topics

Invoking the social work imagination, van Wormer successfully places American social work within a global perspective. This text poses a challenge to the American isolationism that too often restricts social work from its true potential. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate courses alike, this book should be required reading for instructors concerned with meeting CSWE's mandate to prepare students for global social work practice. Breaking with the usual parochialism found in most introductory texts, van Wormer has made a valuable contribution to the task of training social workers to meet the growing challenges of a shrinking world.

David K. Androff, University of California, Berkeley