In the style of The Tipping Point or Freakonomics, a groundbreaking book that will change the way you look at the world.
The fearless Tina Rosenberg has spent her career tackling some of the world's hardest problems. The Haunted Land, her searing work on how Eastern Europe faced the crimes of Communism, garnered both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. In Join the Club, she identifies a brewing social revolution that is changing the way people live, based on harnessing the positive force of peer pressure. Her stories of peer power in action show how it has reduced teen smoking in the United States, made villages in India healthier and more prosperous, helped minority students get top grades in college calculus, and even led to the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. She tells how creative social entrepreneurs are starting to use peer pressure to accomplish goals as personal as losing weight and as global as fighting terrorism. Inspiring and engrossing, Join the Club explains how we can better our world through humanity's most powerful and abundant resource: our connections with one another.
Join the Club: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the World
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The ability of peer groups to affect behavioral change takes on positive connotations when applied to social activism in this ambitious, evocatively written treatment of what the author calls "the social cure." Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Rosenberg (The Haunted Land), recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, explores join-the-club strategies for progressive causes: South Africa's AIDS-awareness group, loveLife; Serbia's student-led anti-Milosevic democracy movement, Otpor; India's rural health-worker program in Jamkhed; a Christian faith-building community in suburban Chicago; and a teen-driven antismoking campaign in Florida. Overcoming the limited efficacy of the usual models—for instance, information-dispersing approaches to behavioral modification—these cases all successfully employ peer groups and in-group lifestyle campaigns in service of their respective social and political goals. Results range from decreases in teen smoking to the overthrow of oppressive governments. Citing a Brixton-based drop-in center aimed at young British Muslims, she explores the degree to which the fight against terrorism might itself be amenable to a peer group approach. Rosenberg's immersion in the issues and considered reflections on the power of peer groups to shape personal and social action brings an urgency to a strategy as old as any in civilization's arsenal. (Mar.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The concept of peer pressure connotes the ability of a group to impose its will upon an individual, to coerce a state of being that might not otherwise exist. It�s what encourages teens to take up smoking and entices inner-city youths to join gangs. And yet, harnessed in an entirely different manner, peer pressure can turn the disaffected into the accomplished, the outliers into the overachievers. Pulitzer Prize-winner Rosenberg inventively examines how creative thinking and critical analysis of group dynamics turned some of India�s lowest caste women into successful entrepreneurs and village leaders, how a group of ragtag Serbian students used street theater to topple a repressive dictator, and why a suburban Chicago megachurch finds its doctrine best disseminated one dinner table at a time. This �social cure,� Rosenberg posits, has the power to channel herd mentality into forces that can bring about positive changes for at-risk individuals, whether they are battling AIDS in South Africa or drug abuse in South Carolina. --Carol Haggas
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
"join the Club" provides some much needed thinking for Social Workers and others interested in making a difference - especially in such difficult economic and anti-social policy times.
Ms. Rosenburg has explored a number of social problems, both domestic and international and explored how the "social cure," peer pressure as she defines it, can make positive changes. Domestically, the exploration of both teen smoking prevention and study groups for Calculus provide brilliant reporting. The use of professional thinking in marketing to engage teens is particularly helpful, and similar ideas to engage youth in political opposition to corporate manipulation in consumerism, worker exploitation, etc. spring easily to mind.
The international examples are also strong, with powerful stories in Indian, grass-roots health care, the empowerment of women and political action. She also examines the probable peer pressure factors in the success of micro-loans.
While for this reader the overly-long section on the use of groups in a protestant, suburban, mega-church doesn't measure up to the other stories - this book is good food for thought for advocates everywhere.
Ms. Rosenburg has explored a number of social problems, both domestic and international and explored how the "social cure," peer pressure as she defines it, can make positive changes. Domestically, the exploration of both teen smoking prevention and study groups for Calculus provide brilliant reporting. The use of professional thinking in marketing to engage teens is particularly helpful, and similar ideas to engage youth in political opposition to corporate manipulation in consumerism, worker exploitation, etc. spring easily to mind.
The international examples are also strong, with powerful stories in Indian, grass-roots health care, the empowerment of women and political action. She also examines the probable peer pressure factors in the success of micro-loans.
While for this reader the overly-long section on the use of groups in a protestant, suburban, mega-church doesn't measure up to the other stories - this book is good food for thought for advocates everywhere.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is an absolutely fascinating book. It is a must read for activists, or would-be activists, interested in social change of any sort. But beyond the audience of social-change practitioners, the book will be richly thought-provoking for anyone interested in how individuals, groups, even entire societies can be transformed for good. In a world where so many personal/social problems seem like intractable downward spirals, it's encouraging, even inspiring, to see the real possibility -- even a clear strategy for -- upward spirals ("virtuous cycles") instead.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
It's rare when you read a book and learn something new on every single page. Rosenberg's prose sometimes reads like a heart pounding novel. At times I thought I was actually witnessing the revolution in Serbia first hand. Rosenberg has an uncanny way of showing us how peer pressure (both positive and negative) can influence people to continue smoking cigarettes, not take their medication, or be involved in a revolution.
I recommend this book to anyone who has interest in finding out why certain societal occurrences happen in the manner they do. I couldn't put this book down. It is actually shocking to think how some organizations and people have been able to utilize the social cure to conduct unbelievable good while other groups use it to conduct unthinkable harm.
I recommend this book to anyone who has interest in finding out why certain societal occurrences happen in the manner they do. I couldn't put this book down. It is actually shocking to think how some organizations and people have been able to utilize the social cure to conduct unbelievable good while other groups use it to conduct unthinkable harm.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Reads like a rather lengthy newspaper article
Long on stories. Short on analysis.
This book describes in excruciatingly lengthy details various "groups" and their impacts on society. Read more
This book describes in excruciatingly lengthy details various "groups" and their impacts on society. Read more
Published 19 days ago by Lawrence
5.0 out of 5 stars
A truly great book!
This book examines how peer pressure can be used for good social and individual causes. It's a great read for anyone who wants to understand how to change society.
Published 1 month ago by Jacquelyn Scherer
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hidden Wisdom
This should have been one of the most fascinating books I've ever read; the premise is groundbreaking, the examples (mostly) of tremendous interest and extremely well-researched,... Read more
Published 1 month ago by ubi
4.0 out of 5 stars
Social capital as a business tool?
For a client we are looking at the area of outreach and engagement, particularly with young people. We recommended "Join the club". Read more
Published 10 months ago by Ron Immink
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-read for changemakers looking to build a positive social...
I rarely write reviews, I must confess, but this book is a treasure for anyone who wants to know how to build a positive social movement. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Alexia Vernon
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important Perspectives
Rosenberg's "Join the Club" provides a number of examples of how peer pressure helps solve social ills. Read more
Published on May 15, 2011 by Loyd E. Eskildson
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must-read for those interested in social change
The message here is that identity trumps information as a path to change. Yet institutions, governments, and organizations are typically less than comfortable or skilled with such... Read more
Published on May 8, 2011 by Peter Donovan
5.0 out of 5 stars
See "Newsweek" review Mar. 14: 2 pages of high praise
Subtitle: "How peer pressure can transform the world". Critic Abraham Verghese says: "A smart new book says social cures can solve the world's problems." And, "... Read more
Published on March 21, 2011 by Carvel K. Thatcher
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