Netwest member, Robert Greenwald has new book

Robert Greenwald''s book, Conflict Without Chaos...A Look Back at Conflict Intervention Initiatives During the Nation's Early Civil Rights Era, was released in April, 2008. See information below. Congratulations, Robert.

Publisher: Hampton Press, Cresskill, NJISBN Paperbound: 978-1-57273-765-5; Price: $27.95ISBN Hardbound: 978=1=57273- 764-8; Price: $67.50
Genres: Nonfiction (conflict resolution, civil rights, historical, memoir)

Mediation, alternative dispute resolution, and civil rights protest have become familiar terms in the lexicon of contemporary human behavior.
This book carries the reader back to some of the early applications of those processes. It is a first-hand account of the turbulent late nineteen sixties, and through the seventies, when minority dissent threatened to widen the racial divide, rendering many communities subject to violent protest and instability. It was a time when new national legislation to bring about more equal sharing of opportunity led to substantial pressures on the legal system. The federal courts were overburdened with petitions for redress of grievances claiming denial of citizen rights guarantees. They were open to considering ways to relieve their dockets of unprecedented congestion.

The idea of ordering "voluntary" mediation as an alternative to litigation began to assert its appeal to the judiciary. The process became particularly prevalent in connection with law suits filed to overcome school desegregation, alleged abusive police practices, complaints of inhumane or unconstitutional conditions of incarceration by prison inmates, and a variety of other issues being tested under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. No longer was mediation largely limited to the settlement of labor-management disputes. A new professional genus was born--the neutral third-party intervenor trained to bring community and institutional conflict parties to the negotiation table.


The author spent a total of 22 years in federal service, much of it as regional mediator with the Community Relations Service, an arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. Prior experience included three years of military service during World War II, some dozen earlier career years in chamber of commerce management positions in Texas and Oklahoma, and later as a senior administrator for a social service agency in Dallas, Texas.

Born in Jamaica, New York, he is a graduate of the George Washington University with a degree in government.For further information, readers are invited to visit the author's web site: http://www.Conflictwithoutchaos.com Expedited purchase from the publisher can be made by calling toll-free at 800-894-8955. Other availability, sometimes limited, from www.Amazon.com by special order from your favorite local bookseller..