Brooks, Arthur C. 1964–

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Brooks, Arthur C. 1964–

PERSONAL:

Born 1964, in Seattle, WA; married; wife's name Ester; children: three. Education: B.A.; M.A.; M.Phil.; Rand Graduate School, Ph.D., 1998.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Syracuse, NY. Office—Maxwell School of Syracuse University, 200 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244. Agent—Lisa Adams, The Garamond Agency, 12 Horton St., Newburyport, MA 01950. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Played French horn for twelve years with orchestras that included the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra; Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and Whitman School of Management, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, Louis A. Bantle Professor of Business and Government Policy. American Enterprise Institute, visiting scholar.

WRITINGS:

Economic Strategies for Orchestras, Symphony Orchestra Institute (Evanston, IL), 1997.

(With others) The Performing Arts in a New Era, Rand (Santa Monica, CA), 2001.

(Editor) Gifts of Time and Money: The Role of Charity in America's Communities, Rowman & Littlefield (Lanham, MD), 2005.

(With others) Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts, Rand (Santa Monica, CA), 2005.

(With others) A Portrait of the Visual Arts: Meeting the Challenges of a New Era, Rand (Santa Monica, CA), 2005.

Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism: America's Charity Divide—Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters, Basic Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including the Wall Street Journal; coeditor of the Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society, 2002-05; contributor to CBSnews.com. Member of various editorial boards.

SIDELIGHTS:

Arthur C. Brooks enjoyed a career as a classical musician before entering academia. Also a student of mathematics and languages, he became a university professor of business and government policy.

Brooks is the author and editor of several books, including Gifts of Time and Money: The Role of Charity in America's Communities, a collection of essays taken from two symposia organized by the nonprofit studies program at Syracuse University. In these writings the contributors study which members of society give the most of themselves, both financially and in time spent, and speculate as to how community involvement in philanthropic work can be broadened and maximized. Leslie Lenkowsky, founding director of the Corporation for National and Community Service, the organization that oversees AmeriCorps, considers the successes of the latter group in building community. The fact that conservative Protestants tend to give more than Catholics and liberals is analyzed by Peter Dobkin Hall of Harvard University, who also notes that liberals are overrepresented on the boards of nonprofits. Eleanor Brown of Pomona College discusses the link between charitable giving and education and how college graduates become affiliated with nonprofits.

Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism: America's Charity Divide—Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters is Brooks's study that compiles the information from fifteen sets of data that brings him to his conclusion that religious conservatives are more charitable than secular liberals. He writes that Democrats who support government redistribution of wealth are least likely to be independently charitable. Brooks writes, however: ‘This book is a call to action for the left, not a celebration of the right."

Brooks found that in the year 2000 religious people gave more than three times as much to charity as secular people, including more to nonreligious charities. Conservative Americans also give more in other ways, including their donations of blood. His visuals include a ‘charity map’ of the country that shows that of the twenty-five states with the highest levels of contributions, twenty-four voted for George W. Bush in 2004. He also found that the working poor gave three times the amount donated by those on welfare. He writes that giving is as beneficial to the donor as to the receiver in that it results in better health and happiness.

Chronicle of Philanthropy reviewer Ben Gose noted: ‘Several times throughout the book, Mr. Brooks quotes Mr. Nader, the political activist, who said during his 2000 presidential campaign: ‘A society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity.’’ Gose added: ‘In an interview, Mr. Nader, who had not seen an advance copy of Who Really Cares, says he has a tough time believing that Mr. Brooks's conclusions about weak giving among liberals are accurate. ‘If you look at the liberal environmental and antipoverty groups, you don't see counterparts on the right wing,’ he says."

Peter C. Glover reviewed the book in Catholic Insight, writing: ‘Who Really Cares in an important and revealing book because it dispels the received wisdom and rhetoric that asserts ‘liberals care in practice more than conservatives and Christians.’ Brooks rightly calls the claim ‘one of the greatest political hypocrisies of our time.’"

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Catholic Insight, June, 2007, Peter C. Glover, review of Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth about Compassionate Conservatism: America's Charity Divide—Who Gives, Who Doesn't, and Why It Matters, p. 41.

Christian Century, June 12, 2007, James Halteman, review of Who Really Cares, p. 32.

Chronicle of Philanthropy, August 18, 2005, Caroline Preston, review of Gifts of Time and Money: The Role of Charity in America's Communities; November 23, 2006, Anne W. Howard, review of Who Really Cares, and Ben Gose, review of Who Really Cares.

Law Society Journal, February, 2006, Robert Richards, review of Gifts of Time and Money, p. 92.

Library Journal, February 15, 2007, Rachel Bridgewater, review of Who Really Cares, p. 135.

Reason, March, 2007, Katherine Mangu-Ward, ‘Who Gives to Charity?,’ interview, p. 13.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 2005, review of Gifts of Time and Money, p. 139.

Weekly Standard, January 22, 2007, Martin Morse Wooster, review of Who Really Cares.