Project Head Start: A Legacy of the War on Poverty,

In recent years, it has seemed that we Americans are so given to self-flagellation that we cannot stand up and applaud anything. There were some victories scored in Lyndon Johnson's war on poverty, but none greater than Project Head Start. As the book jacket states: When Project Head Start was organized in 1965, its goals mirrored the hopes of millions of impoverished Americans. Initially funded as a short-term effort, Head Start has become, after more than a decade of operation and a cost of approximately 2 billion, the most ambitious educational, social and health program for young children and their families in United States history. This book, edited by Edward Zigler and Jeanette Valentine, examines the experience through the eyes of 35 authors from many disciplines. Most of them had a hand in Head Start. As with most multiauthored volumes, there is much repetition. Tight editing is not in evidence.