Professor Sachs has provided a compelling blueprint for eliminating extreme poverty from the world by 2025. Sach's analysis and proposals are suffused with all the practical experience of his 20 years in the field - working in dozens of countries across the globe to foster economic development and well-being. 396 pages.

A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end extreme global poverty, now a Signal paperback. "The poor you will always have with you," according to Matthew 26:11. But Jeffrey Sachs, economics superstar, special advisor to the Secretary General of the UN and the author of The End of Poverty , vehemently disagrees. In his view, poverty -- especially the extreme deprivation of sub-Saharan Africa -- can easily be eradicated. The vast sums spent in foreign aid over the decades has not come close to alleviating the dire subsistence problems of Africans. Sachs believed he knew the reason: the developed world simply hadn't spent enough. In 2006, Sachs, backed by tens of millions of donor dollars, launched the five-year Millennium Villages Project. Sachs would test his theories in villages in different African countries, then, with each success, scale up until until the program was continent-wide. His first village "make-over" was a small community in Sauri, Kenya, and the immediate effect was encouraging. With that first inkling of success achieved, Sachs rolled out a dozen model Millennium villages in ten countries. For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Project, following Sachs on official trips and listening in on conversations with heads of states, rival organisations and potential donors. And she has immersed herself in the lives of people in two of the remote villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting hospitality from these camel herders and smallhold farmers, and sharing in their struggles, Munk came to understand the on-the-ground issues challenging Sachs' one-size-fits-all approach to global poverty. The Idealist is the profound and moving story of what happened when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man met messy human reality.

In this compassionate and controversial book Irving Harris argues that the key to breaking the cycle of poverty, hopelessness, and violence is very early intervention: we must provide adequate caregiving to children from birth to age three and - to stop the cycle even sooner - we must discourage pregnancy among adolescents. Harris, a successful businessman, has devoted himself to children's causes for the past forty years and has initiated and funded numerous programs geared to children and families. He presents data from research in pediatrics, social work, nursing, psychology, and education showing that children who receive early nurturing and stimulation are far more likely to have success in school and in life. He urges that the government build more day-care centers and train more caregivers and public-health nurses for babies and small children; that schools offer instruction and counseling in prenatal care; and that there be easier access to contraceptives and abortions in order to reduced unwanted pregnancies.

Rare book

Inequality has always been with us. With the growth of capitalism across the globe, inequalities of income, wealth and power became increasingly extreme. Written by economist Douglas Dowd, this book shows that the present banking crisis is the result of the growth of inequality across the globe. The expansion of the financial sector has brought incredible riches to a select few, at the expense of the majority. Inequality was ignored, or described as a necessary aspect of a booming global economy. With the collapse of the world markets, the fallacy of this position is clear. Inequality and the Global Economic Crisis shows how it is only by addressing inequality that we can secure the health of our economies in the future.--Publisher.