Choice 评论
Gill, an economist who is clearly concerned about the fate of his own grandchildren, documents the familiar decline of children's welfare and family quality. His interesting claim is that better family life existed in the past (e.g., the Victorian era and the 1950s) because belief in progress made Americans disciplined and self-sacrificing for the sake of posterity. Now, however, the "process of progress" (modernization) has made the future so indefinite that Americans are no longer certain it will bring progress. Curiously, Gill's solution is not to try to restore belief in progress, much less in the religious vision that underlay it. Instead, he offers some modest neoconservative policy incentives to get people to take care of their children. After 300 pages of solid, plodding argument pointing to the bad effects of uncertainty about the future, Gill still cannot bring himself to believe in progress, either. This end, ironically, demonstrates his point more successfully, if less hopefully, than his argument does. General readers. B. Weston; Centre College