With a unique perspective, Ryan finds generic phenomena in his ethnographic account of one program in one community and explains it in organization term---in this case Fighting Back, a program against substance abuse, in New Haven, Connecticut. Based on the assumption a la Durkheim and others that what may be socially pathological may in fact be sociologically normal--like crime, which comes with the territory, he argues that what individuals can do in a community and most of what happens to them is mediated and constrained by organizations and that to understand how programs like the spotlighted Fight Back play out requires understanding how a community of organizations works. Twelve chapters are divided into five parts: from opportunity to disaster (and back again); disaster and opportunity; communities and organizations; organizing organizations; social organizational junkyards. Chapters are: the ghosts of organizations past; from disaster to opportunity; from opportunity to disaster; what kind of thing is community?; what kind of thing is an organization?; doing things with organizations in communities; doing things with organizations: the cost of organizational diversity; doing things with organizations: the cost of system; networks of garbage cans: the amplification of irrationality; networks and calendar noise; community as organizational junkyard; why can’t organizations be like us? Annotation ©2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)