Review of the hardback: 'Andrew Morris shows the persistence of the voluntary agency in America's social welfare provision in this engaging and well-researched book. In the process he makes a contribution that will alter the course of scholarship on the American welfare state.' Edward D. Berkowitz, George Washington University

Review of the hardback: 'Andrew Morris has provided a meticulously researched and persuasively argued volume. It totally nullifies the longstanding myth of a distinctive 'independent sector' of nonprofit voluntary organizations that have been operationally distinct from governmental agencies and programs. Morris accomplishes this task by delineating the emergence of 'New Alignments' that thrived between the 1930s and the 1970s (and, if to a lesser extent, beyond). This was an interval when voluntary nonprofit agencies helped direct and partially fund public as well as private institutional social welfare ventures and attendant policies. Thanks to Morris and a few other very capable scholars, it has become problematic for participants in the field of philanthropic studies to belittle the intense interpenetration of voluntary associations and government agencies.' Lawrence J. Friedman, Professor of Philanthropic Studies and Emeritus Professor of History, Indiana University and Visiting Scholar, Harvard University