Reading, Writing, and Riches: Education and the Socio-economic Order in North America by Randle W. Nelsen, David A. Nock

Reading writing and riches is a unified collection of articles on the educational system in North America, focusing particularly on the economics of capitalism as it affects education.

The book is critical, anti-pluralist and anti-liberal; as such, it provides a solid basis for serious discussion of the educational system as it operates at present. The first reader to draw equally on Canadian and American data, it allows readers to compare the similar - and different - impacts of capitalism on each country's education system.

The book is generally addressed to college and university undergraduates and deals largely with Canadian and American post-secondary education, but also substantially covers other levels: primary and secondary, preschool, adult and community-based learning.

The collection features a variety of approaches to the subject matter. Some articles are explicitly theoretical and critical; others consist of the observations of particular educational situations, and still others are arguments based on statistical data.

The overall aim of the collection, however, is not simply to familiarize readers with theoret- ical criticism of status quo ideology. The editors hope people will use these critiques to propose and implement alternatives to our present system of education.

Randle W. Nelsen and David A. Nock are on the staff of the Faculty of Sociology at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Ontario.