These books are available for you to access at the Honors College Front Desk. We’re hoping to turn this collection into a small library with the purpose of building social consciousness among students at UIC. Feel free to offer us suggestions or donate an old book to the growing library!
WHITE MAN'S BURDEN - WILLIAM EASTERLY
“An informed and excoriating attack on the tragic waste, futility, and hubris of the West's efforts to date to improve the lot of the so-called developing world, with constructive suggestions on how to move forward. William Easterly's "The White Man's Burden" is about what its author calls the twin tragedies of global poverty. The first, of course, is that so many are seemingly fated to live horribly stunted, miserable lives and die such early deaths. The second is that after fifty years and more than $2.3 trillion in aid from the West to address the first tragedy, it has shockingly little to show for it. We'll never solve the first tragedy, Easterly argues, unless we figure out the second. The ironies are many: We preach a gospel of freedom and individual accountability, yet we intrude in the inner workings of other countries through bloated aid bureaucracies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank that are accountable to no one for the effects of their prescriptions. We take credit for the economic success stories of the last fifty years, like South Korea and Taiwan, when in fact we deserve very little. However, we reject all accountability for pouring more than half a trillion dollars into Africa and other regions and trying one "big new idea" after another, to no avail. Most of the places in which we've meddled are in fact no better off or are even worse off than they were before. We need to face our own history of ineptitude and learn our lessons, especially at a time when the question of our ability to "build democracy," to transplant the institutions of our civil society into foreign soil so that they take root, has become one of the most pressing we face.”
http://www.amazon.com/White-Mans-Burden-Efforts-Little/dp/0143038826/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677379&sr=8-2
A BED FOR THE NIGHT - DAVID RIEFF
“Timely and controversial, A Bed for the Night reveals how humanitarianorganizations trying to bring relief in an ever more violent anddangerous world are often betrayed and misused, and have increasingly lost sight of their purpose. Although humanitarianism's accomplishments have been tremendous, including saving countless lives, the lesson of the past ten years of civil wars and ethnic cleansing is that it can do only so much to alleviate suffering. Aid workers have discovered that while trying to do good, their efforts may also cause harm. Drawing on firsthand reporting from hot war zones around the world -- Bosnia, Rwanda, Congo, Kosovo, Sudan, and most recently Afghanistan -- Rieff describes how the International Committee of the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, the International Rescue Committee, CARE, Oxfam, and other humanitarian organizations have moved from their founding principle of political neutrality, which gave them access to victims of wars, to encouraging the international community to take action to stop civil wars and ethnic cleansing. A cogent, hard-hitting report from the front lines, A Bed for the Night shows what international aid organizations must do if they are to continue to care for the victims of humanitarian disasters.”
http://www.amazon.com/Bed-Night-Humanitarianism-Crisis/dp/074325211X/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677414&sr=1-2THE BOTTOM BILLION - PAUL COLLIER
“Global poverty, Paul Collier points out, is actually falling quite rapidly for about eighty percent of the world. The real crisis lies in a group of about 50 failing states, the bottom billion, whose problems defy traditional approaches to alleviating poverty. In The Bottom
Billion, Collier contends that these fifty failed states pose the central challenge of the developing world in the twenty-first century. Collier analyzes the causes of failure, pointing to a set of traps that snare these countries, including civil war, a dependence on the extraction and export of natural resources, and bad governance. Standard solutions do not work against these traps, he writes; aid is often ineffective, and globalization can actually make matters worse, driving development to more stable nations. What the bottom billion need, Collier argues, is a bold new plan supported by the Group of Eight industrialized nations. If failed states are ever to be helped, the G8 will have to adopt preferential trade policies, new laws against corruption, and new international charters, and even conduct carefully calibrated military interventions. As former director of research for the World Bank and current Director of the Center for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, Paul Collier has spent a lifetime working to end global poverty.”
http://www.amazon.com/Bed-Night-Humanitarianism-Crisis/dp/074325211X/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677414&sr=1-2THE END OF POVERTY - JEFFREY SACHS
“He has been cited by "The New York Times Magazine" as "probably the most important economist in the world" and by Time as "the world's best-known economist." He has advised an extraordinary range of world leaders and international institutions on the full range of issues related to creating economic success and reducing the world's poverty and misery. Now, at last, he draws on his entire twenty-five-year body of experience to offer a thrilling and inspiring big-picture vision of the keys to economic success in the world today and the steps that are necessary to achieve prosperity for all. Marrying vivid eyewitness storytelling to his laser like analysis, Jeffrey Sachs sets the stage by drawing a vivid conceptual map of the world economy and the different categories into which countries fall. Rather than deliver a worldview to readers from on high, Sachs leads them along the learning path he himself followed, telling the remarkable stories of his own work in Bolivia, Poland, Russia, India, China, and Africa as a way to bring readers to a broad-based understanding of the array of issues countries can face and the way the issues interrelate. He concludes by drawing on everything he has learned to offer an integrated set of solutions to the interwoven economic, political, environmental, and
social problems that most frequently hold societies back. In the end, he leaves readers with an understanding, not of how daunting the world's problems are, but how solvable they are-and why making the effort is a matter both of moral obligation and strategic
self-interest.”
http://www.amazon.com/End-Poverty-Economic-Possibilities-Time/dp/0143036580/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677465&sr=1-1MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS - TRACY KIDDER
“This powerful and inspiring new book shows how one person can make a difference, as Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man who is in love with the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it. At the center of Mountains Beyond Mountains stands Paul Farmer. Doctor, Harvard professor, renowned infectious-disease specialist, anthropologist, the recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant, world-class Robin Hood, Farmer was brought up in a bus and on a boat, and in medical school found his life's calling: to diagnose and cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most. This magnificent book shows how radical change can be fostered in situations that seem insurmountable, and it also shows how a meaningful life can be created, as Farmer—brilliant, charismatic, charming, both a leader in international health and a doctor who finds time to make house calls in Boston and the mountains of Haiti—blasts through convention to get results. Mountains Beyond Mountains takes us from Harvard to Haiti, Peru, Cuba, and Russia as Farmer changes minds and practices through his dedication to the philosophy that "the only real nation is
humanity" - a philosophy that is embodied in the small public charity he founded, Partners In Health. At the heart of this book is the example of a life based on hope, and on an understanding of the truth of the Haitian proverb "Beyond mountains there are mountains": as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.”
http://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Beyond-Quest-Farmer-Would/dp/0812973011/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677488&sr=1-1PATHOLOGIES OF POWER - PAUL FARMER
“Pathologies of Power uses harrowing stories of life--and death—in extreme situations to interrogate our understanding of human rights. Paul Farmer, a physician and anthropologist with twenty years of experience working in Haiti, Peru, and Russia, argues that promoting the social and economic rights of the world's poor is the most important human rights struggle of our times. With passionate eyewitness accounts from the prisons of Russia and the beleaguered villages of Haiti and Chiapas, this book links the lived experiences of individual victims to a broader analysis of structural violence. Farmer challenges conventional thinking within human rights circles and exposes the relationships between political and economic injustice, on one hand, and the suffering and illness of the powerless, on the other. Farmer shows that the same social forces that give rise to epidemic diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis also sculpt risk for human rights violations. He illustrates the ways that racism and gender inequality in the United States are embodied as disease and death. Yet this book is far from a hopeless inventory of abuse. Farmer's disturbing examples are linked to a guarded optimism that new medical and social technologies will develop in tandem with a more informed sense of social justice. Otherwise, he concludes, we will be guilty of managing social inequality rather than addressing structural violence. Farmer's urgent plea to think about human rights in the context of global public health and to consider critical issues of quality and access for the world's poor should be of fundamental concern to a world characterized by the bizarre proximity of surfeit and suffering.”
http://www.amazon.com/Pathologies-Power-Health-California-Anthropology/dp/0520243269/ref=pd_sim_b_img_7PEDAGOGY OF THE OPPRESSED - PAULO FREIRE
“The methodology of the late Paulo Freire, once considered such a threat to the established order that he was "invited" to leave his native Brazil, has helped to empower countless impoverished and illiterate people throughout the world. Freire's work has taken on special urgency in the United States and Western Europe, where the creation of a permanent underclass among the underprivileged and minorities in cities and urban centers is increasingly accepted as the norm. With a substantive new introduction to Freire's life and the remarkable impact of this book by writer and Freire confidant and authority Donaldo Macedo, this anniversary edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed will inspire a new generation of educators, students, and general readers for years to come.”
http://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Paulo-Freire/dp/0826412769/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677557&sr=1-1DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM BY AMARTYA SEN
“Amartya Sen is the most respected and well-known economist of his time. This book is a synthesis of his thought, viewing economic development as a means to extending freedoms rather than an end in itself. By widening his outlook to include poverty, tyranny, lack of opportunity, individual rights, and political structures, Professor Sen gives a stimulating and enlightening overview of the development process. His compassionate yet rigorous analysis will appeal to all those interested in the fate of the developing world, from general reader to specialist.”
http://www.amazon.com/Pedagogy-Oppressed-Paulo-Freire/dp/0826412769/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1200677557&sr=1-1>Harishi
