Publisher's Weekly Review
Shapiro, social policies writer for U.S. News & World Report , centers his empathetic review of our society's relations to its disabled population on the 1992 passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act. He documents the political progress of the issue with stories about several of the nation's estimated 35 million disabled people. Included are polio-afflicted activists, Special Olympics competitors, armed services veterans and elderly people who owe their survival to medical and technological advances. While the author cites encouraging signs of progress made in the advance of their rights, he notes that disabled people still struggle to be accepted on equal, independent terms without being patronized, segregated or victimized in an antiquated social services system and a prejudiced society. Author tour. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A timely but diffuse chronicle of the ways that both society and self-perceptions have changed for America's largest minority- -the 35-to- 43 million people with disabilities. Shapiro (a writer for U.S. News & World Report) begins his story at Berkeley in the 1960's with activist Ed Roberts, a polio survivor, and the Physically Disabled Students' Program, whose self-help approach launched the disability-rights movement in the US and led to protest groups staging sit-ins to dramatize their demand for access to public transportation. The author tracks disability-rights legislation from the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibited federally funded institutions from discriminating against the handicapped, to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1992, which requires businesses to provide access for the handicapped and bans employers from discriminating on the basis of disability. Although the movement has achieved great success in a relatively short time, the disabled are still a fragmented coalition, with different groups emphasizing different aims. Many of the deaf, for instance, urge a separatist route, promoting deaf culture rather than integration into the hearing world. Shapiro also looks at the special concerns of the blind, the autistic, and the mentally retarded. He examines the impact of technology on aid for the disabled, the need for nursing-home reform, and the potential for backlash as the public becomes aware of the costs of implementing disability laws. Shapiro interviewed hundreds of people for this report, and his conversations with them bring life to his pages, reducing the distance between the disabled and others. A helpful introduction, but Shapiro loses focus and impact by attempting to survey too many different issues.
Booklist Review
Shapiro, who covers social policy issues for U.S. News & World Report, here expands his five years' reportage on the disability rights movement into this accessible popular history of a movement--and a minority--few Americans understand. Shapiro correctly emphasizes two key aspects of the disability rights movement. First, there's its diversity, encompassing people with many disabilities, varying agendas, and a wide range of tactics, from fund-raising for medical research and mutual support services to electioneering and lobbying to in-your-face direct action. And second, there's its aggressive attack on "society's myths, fears, and stereotypes"--the poster child and "supercrip" images and business-as-usual attitudes that limit people with disabilities, the movement argues, far more radically than their physical or mental conditions. No Pity covers the independent living movement; the Gallaudet University protest; ADAPT's direct action campaigns; "mainstreaming"; autism and mental retardation; the promise and threat of technological developments; tough moral and ethical questions such as abortion, health care rationing, suicide, and euthanasia; and the political history of key federal legislation, notably 1991's Americans with Disabilities Act. More comprehensive histories of the disability rights movement will no doubt be written, but for now No Pity belongs in most social science collections. ~--Mary Carroll
Library Journal Review
With 35 million disabled Americans, the American with Disabilities Act and its implications are here to stay. Shapiro, a U.S. News & World Report journalist, explores in depth the thoughts, fears, and facts behind the disability rights movement. The premise throughout this compelling historical account is that there is no pity or tragedy in disability--it is society's myths, fears, and stereotypes that make being disabled difficult. Shapiro's coverage is thorough, ranging from the movement's beginnings in Berkeley in the 1960s to the issues that will emerge in the future. Those interested in gaining a basic understand of the disability rights movement, will find this title is well organized, thoroughly researched, and thought-provoking. For all collections.-- Emily H. Ferren, Carroll Cty. P.L., Westminster, Md. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
