Book Review: Asian social work by Ian Shaw and Rosaleen Ow (Eds.)

Abstract

Recognition that humans deserve their basic needs to be met and the emerging mechanisms for relief of destitution are clearly and coherently narrated as is the growth of organizations aiming to meet the needs of people economically harmed by major social changes such as industrialization and war. Social work activities became mechanisms for promoting the values of social justice, perhaps "peaking" in the 1970s and 1980s.I have read this book with the advantage of the long view, having joined the profession in the early 1970s. While feeling deep apprehension about the Covid injured global social condition I found this book illustrates historical precedents which offer optimism for the potential recovery of social work, now that challenges to concepts of deserving and undeserving, poverty and inequality are being voiced due to society's new, uncharted experiences of hunger, homelessness, and hopelessness. It is a very valuable reading for students and social work educators.