Recommended by Loris. Started Feb. 4, 2010, finished Feb. 9, 2010. Must read for anyone interested in the world history, economics, environment, and social issues.
Really interesting and well organized, a mixture of common sense, startling statistics, and optimism. I found the chapters on the economic crises in Poland, China, etc. extremely enlightening (didn't pay attention at the time). He describes the roles of the IMF, World Bank and the US, who are the culprits in many cases.
Sachs defines three types of poverty and explains how nations can eliminate extreme poverty (life itself is precarious). 500 hundred years ago everybody was extremely poor, except for a tiny elite. At this time there are 1 billion extreme poor, less than 20% of the world's population, which has declined in the last two decade from 50%. Put this way, one can't help but have a good feeling that progress is being made quite rapidly.He explains in detail all the factors that lead to extreme poverty, including politics and disease and geography. He has a plan for eliminating "extreme" poverty that certainly sounds doable to this cynic. He debunks every possible excuse for not doing it. He is most harsh on the US for giving the smallest GDP percentage of foreign aid of all countries in the world (by far).
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