William Julius Wilson has a way of shaking things up. In his
landmark 1978 book The Declining Significance of Race, he argued
that class and economics plays a more significant role than race
in causing inner-city poverty. His last book, When Work
Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poorwhich the New York
Times Book Review named one of the most notable books of
1996examined the devastating effects of the loss of jobs on
individuals, families, and neighborhoods in our cities. For
these and other works, Time magazine named Wilson as one of
Americas 25 Most Influential People, stating, "No thinker has
done more than William Julius Wilson to explain why the black
underclass sank into such misery and isolation at the same time
millions of other African Americans were escaping from the
ghetto to create a vibrant middle class." Wilson, who taught for
24 years at the University of Chicago and was a MacArthur Prize
Fellow, is now the Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University
Professor at Harvard University. His next b