From Library Journal
Some people are plainly evil. Mass popular education and growing prosperity have not prevented the Holocaust, race riots, and mindless domestic violence. Bly, an author and promoter of co-operation between teachers and social workers, thinks we know more than we are willing to admit. We have not used our knowledge of social psychology or exploited the riches of literature as a device for reconceptualizing and understanding our lives. There is good writing here by Joyce Carol Oates, James Agee, Tobias Wolff, and many others?and the aim is for us to use it. Bly feels that we should try to interact with the characters in literature, try to assess the long-range impact of all our decisions on the lives of others and develop coherent accounts of our own values. More historical understanding and a little formal philosophical analysis would have improved the book, but ordinary readers will find help and comfort here. Recommended for public libraries.?Leslie Armour, Univ. of OttawaCopyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia
"Carol Bly is a one woman army fighting moral drift and the bullies of the world. Her book will inspire others to join the fight. Changing the Bully Who Rules the World uses literature and the social sciences to examine solutions to our cultural problems. Her analysis is complex, incisve and hopeful."


Book Description
Anthology of 10 short stories, 10 poems, and 4 essays, in nine chapters with a discussion by the author for each chapter. The idea of the book is using first-rate literature to think about ethical and psychological dilemmas of our time. The appendix offers some wisdom from related fields--social work, moral psychotherapy, and ethical stage-development.


About the Author
Carol Bly is author of several books of essays and short stories. She teaches regularly in the University of Minnesota's summer-arts Split Rock Program, and is this year's Edelstein-Keller Author of Distinction for the English Department at Minnesota. She is the recipient of the Friends of American Writers Award, two Minnesota Annual Book Awards, an honorary doctorate from Northland College, Bush Foundation and a Minnesota State Arts Board grants. She lives in St Paul, Minnesota

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Bosses, partners, governments, corporations - all can act as bullies in our lives, intimidating us to their will. But changing their behavior may be in our power. In this provocative, visionary book, Carol Bly examines some of this century's most far-ranging concepts about how to nurture ethical human beings and presents them through the lens of excellent contemporary literature. Changing the Bully Who Rules the World is a book of hopeful, practical ideas that can hasten ethical change both in our thinking and in our behavior. Through an anthology of exceptional literature, Bly's book asks the reader to contemplate anew the voices she presents - including works by Charles Baxter, Donald Hall, Jim Harrison, Mark Helprin, Denise Levertov, Thomas McGrath, Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Oliver, Katha Pollitt, Alice Walker, Tobias Wolff, and many others - and to consider them in terms of the ideas of important thinkers in human behavior and our own experiences.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal