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Rating: 
Summary: Two books in one -- both tops!
Review: As a historian, I must compliment Professor Carp for his work on a topic that is seldom treated in a serious, academic fashion. His book is actually two chapters in the American adoption story. Chapter one tells us that the context of the times was such that adoption was never really favored, especially by social workers. That observation helps explain the current antipathy toward adoption by the inheritors of that bias. Chapter two debunks the "Adoption Reform Movement" in such a fashion that a sensible person would discard most of the books in most libraries based on the fallacies Carp describes. I'm not really into the various battles that seem to be raging in the adoption world but I applaud this incredible, sound piece of historical research. I know that historians who pick it up will be impressed. One can only hope that a few social workers will also read it.
Rating:
Summary: Lessons for us in the U.K.
Review: As Parliament has finally determined to find families for children who have been languishing in care, I was keen to see if there were any favourable accounts about adoption in the U.S. that might be of interest. A search of the Amazon.com site led me to the Carp book, which I confess I read at my university library. It is an altogether fascinating tale, one that is uniquely American, of course. As a student of some of the fostering homes set up here, back as far as those of Rev. Muller in Bristol, I could not put the book down. I must say that the question of privacy was handled in an altogether fresh way for me. In particular, I found the academic examination of the claims that children adopted as infants suffer all sorts of trauma very helpful. It seems that the U.K. took quite a wrong turn when we set about changing our system based on wholly inadequate research. Many thanks to Mr Carp for his fine book.
Rating:
Summary: Lessons for us in the U.K.
Review: Carp has a lot of great information about adoption agencies' and social workers' policies concerning the release of birth and adoption information to adult adoptees. It was fascinating to see all the quotes regarding their acceptance of adoptees' desire for identifying information up until the 1950s or so.However, when it comes to information regarding the legislative histories of sealed birth and adoption records laws, he has little to contribute, and some of his information is wrong. Additionally, he seems to take it for granted that biological mothers in recent decades were promised absolute perpetual anonymity from their relinquished and subsequently adopted offspring, but this baseless assumption goes undocumented in his book (since it is, after all, an absolutely false assertion). That said (or rather, written), for those who want further insight into the issue of sealed versus open birth and adoption records, this book is not just a necessary read, but a necessary purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: It's a necessary read, and a necessary purchase.
Review: Carp has a lot of great information about adoption agencies' and social workers' policies concerning the release of birth and adoption information to adult adoptees. It was fascinating to see all the quotes regarding their acceptance of adoptees' desire for identifying information up until the 1950s or so. However, when it comes to information regarding the legislative histories of sealed birth and adoption records laws, he has little to contribute, and some of his information is wrong. Additionally, he seems to take it for granted that biological mothers in recent decades were promised absolute perpetual anonymity from their relinquished and subsequently adopted offspring, but this baseless assumption goes undocumented in his book (since it is, after all, an absolutely false assertion). That said (or rather, written), for those who want further insight into the issue of sealed versus open birth and adoption records, this book is not just a necessary read, but a necessary purchase.
Rating: 
Summary: What an unrealistic look at adoption
Review: Carp tells adopters exactly what they would like to hear: that adoption is a wonderful solution. However, as an adoptee, I can tell him that the "flawed studies" he chides tell the truth. People are hurt by adoption. Mothers have a bond with their children that transferring legal rights to raise the child cannot break. When a mother loses the right to raise her child, however, the child and mother suffer. The "genetic bewilderment" that Brodzinsky talks about, for instance, is something I experienced firsthand. Only after reading the term did I know how to articulate the pain I've always felt. Carp needs to talk to the adoptees I've met in my life, and to the mothers who've lost the rights to raise their children. I wonder what interest Carp has in promoting adoption.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but flawed
Review: Carp's book has some interesting info, but he shoots himself in the foot by decrying the lack of hard scientific evidence and research on the part of any group whose arguments HE doesn't like. After all, the book makes clear that almost NO ONE on ANY side of the sealed records debate has hard scientific evidence and research about anything concerning adoption, trauma, etc. Also, his constant use of the words "emotional," "drama," and "therapeutic entertainment" when he discusses adoptees in search (most of whom are female) and birthmothers is suspicious to the point of smelling like misogyny. This book tried to be even-handed, but the lack of gendered analysis renders many of his insights useless to any ongoing project of justice and ethics in adoption.
Rating:
Summary: Poor historical method
Review: I am interested in the history of adoption so I read this book. The hard data from the earlier part of the book was compelling but the general conclusions drawn towards the end read like biased propaganda. Carp, privy to one state agency's top secret adoption files, makes sweeping generalizations validating across-the-board adoption practice for the nation based on his interpretations of this microcosm. Also, fairly deadly to read.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books on adoption
Review: I've read Carp's book very carefully and I can say without hesitation that it is one of a handful of the most important books on adoption published in the last 25 years. As the co-author of two editions of The Encyclopedia of Adoption (Facts on File) and the Executive Editor of three editions of Adoption Factbook, I have had the opportunity to become familiar with the full range of writing on adoption. Carp's book is outstanding.
I say this despite some of the book's flaws -- some minor errors that might have been avoided if the author had interviewed one of the individuals he credits with being a major player during the last two decades, yours truly. I'm not sure that any such interview would have changed Carp's mind: he strikes me, in what he has written in this book and what he has said in public fora, as a typical academic -- stubbornly wedded to the facts he has unearthed. And facts he's unearthed are so critical to the history of adoption in this country that his book should be required reading in every school of social work, in every family law course and for every judge that ever hears an adoption case. His recitation of the history of the role played by the women in the U.S. Children's Bureau is worth the price of the book all by itself. His central contribution, however, is to say in much more detail what Alfred Kadushin said years earlier in his textbook, CHILD WELFARE. Like Kadushin, Carp finds no evidence to support the junk science that underlies most of what passes for "professional practice" in today's social work and related fields. If only Carp had written his work 20 years earlier, adoption of newborn infants in the U.S. today might well be still flourishing instead of hanging on by a thread. As the last two editions of Adoption Factbook pointed out, the number of pregnancies which end in adoption is about one out of every hundred. For some, such as the collection of cranks and quacks that make up the "Adoption Reform Movement," such a statistic is evidence of victory. But it is no victory for children or parents who are unwilling or unable to raise children. Perhaps Carp will turn his attention next to the most pernicious and deadly aspect of the "Adoption Reform Movement," the crew of self-anointed "counselors" who invent new psychiatric labels and then proceed to try to heal them. I speak here of those like the "rebirthing" therapists who smothered a girl to death. Such a book may take a psychiatrist with Carp's gift for research. In sum, Carp's book is a very good read. The only tragedy is that it has been so widely ignored, the victim of a planned campaign by those whose empty agenda is so clearly revealed by Carp's detective work.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best books on adoption
Review: I've read Carp's book very carefully and I can say without hesitation that it is one of a handful of the most important books on adoption published in the last 25 years. As the co-author of two editions of The Encyclopedia of Adoption (Facts on File) and the Executive Editor of three editions of Adoption Factbook, I have had the opportunity to become familiar with the full range of writing on adoption. Carp's book is outstanding.
I say this despite some of the book's flaws -- some minor errors that might have been avoided if the author had interviewed one of the individuals he credits with being a major player during the last two decades, yours truly. I'm not sure that any such interview would have changed Carp's mind: he strikes me, in what he has written in this book and what he has said in public fora, as a typical academic -- stubbornly wedded to the facts he has unearthed. And facts he's unearthed are so critical to the history of adoption in this country that his book should be required reading in every school of social work, in every family law course and for every judge that ever hears an adoption case. His recitation of the history of the role played by the women in the U.S. Children's Bureau is worth the price of the book all by itself. His central contribution, however, is to say in much more detail what Alfred Kadushin said years earlier in his textbook, CHILD WELFARE. Like Kadushin, Carp finds no evidence to support the junk science that underlies most of what passes for "professional practice" in today's social work and related fields. If only Carp had written his work 20 years earlier, adoption of newborn infants in the U.S. today might well be still flourishing instead of hanging on by a thread. As the last two editions of Adoption Factbook pointed out, the number of pregnancies which end in adoption is about one out of every hundred. For some, such as the collection of cranks and quacks that make up the "Adoption Reform Movement," such a statistic is evidence of victory. But it is no victory for children or parents who are unwilling or unable to raise children. Perhaps Carp will turn his attention next to the most pernicious and deadly aspect of the "Adoption Reform Movement," the crew of self-anointed "counselors" who invent new psychiatric labels and then proceed to try to heal them. I speak here of those like the "rebirthing" therapists who smothered a girl to death. Such a book may take a psychiatrist with Carp's gift for research. In sum, Carp's book is a very good read. The only tragedy is that it has been so widely ignored, the victim of a planned campaign by those whose empty agenda is so clearly revealed by Carp's detective work.
Rating:
Summary: He knows not of what he speaks
Review: The author obviously never spoke to any "true mothers" when writing this book. To say they "there are too many psychologically healthy birth mothers and adopted persons to allow one to entertain seriously the idea that traditional adoption is inherently harmful to those involved." is to show he has conducted no studies of his own on true mothers or adoptees in this country. One only has to read mail on any of the many adoption related email lists on the internet to see what trauma is caused by adoption. I rate this book a -10
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