?A history of the professionalization of social work from the 1920s to the 1950s, based on thorough use of existing social work documents. Leighninger has culled personal correspondence, oral history, and published reports of the time. Leighninger argues that consideration of conflict and diversity is more useful than an analysis of professional attributes in understanding the development of the profession. Four issues guide the discussion: should social work organizations stress profession building or public service, particularly service to poor people; should social work promote public welfare issues, particularly those affecting poor people; should social workers use information, expertise, and education or social action to influence social policy and social change; should social work membership and practice be limited to specialized, graduate practitioners or does it include a broader group of practitioners? Most of the book deals with these identity issues as they were realized by social workers within the context of events of the times. Leighninger''s work is more detailed than Roy Lubove''s The Professional Altruist: Emergence of Social Work as a Career 1880-1930 and conveys more facts about the internal struggles of professional organizations. An important addition to graduate and undergraduate social work libraries.?-Choice