Nina Munk. (2013). The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. Unabridged Books on Tape.

Nina Munk. 2013. The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. Books on Tape.

Nina Munk, The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. Books on Tape, 2013.

Nina Munk. The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. Unabridged Books on Tape, 2013.

OverDrive Product Record

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     NINA MUNK, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, is a journalist and the author of Fools Rush In: Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner. She was previously a senior writer at Fortune, and before that a senior editor at Forbes. Her work has appeared in Vanity Fair, the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Fortune, and the New York Times. She lives in New York.

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2013-09-10T00:00:00-04:00

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title

The Idealist

fullDescription

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Bloomberg • Forbes • The Spectator

Recipient of Foreign Policy's 2013 Albie Award
A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end global poverty
    
 "The poor you will always have with you," to cite the Gospel of Matthew 26:11. Jeffrey Sachs—celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential bestseller The End of Poverty—disagrees.  In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about ending extreme poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development."
 
            In 2006, Sachs launched the Millennium Villages Project, a daring five-year experiment designed to test his theories in Africa. The first Millennium village was in Sauri, a remote cluster of farming communities in western Kenya. The initial results were encouraging. With his first taste of success, and backed by one hundred twenty million dollars from George Soros and other likeminded donors, Sachs rolled out a dozen model villages in ten sub-Saharan countries. Once his approach was validated it would be scaled up across the entire continent. At least that was the idea.
 
        For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Millennium Villages Project, accompanying Sachs on his official trips to Africa and listening in on conversations with heads-of-state, humanitarian organizations, rival economists, and development experts. She has immersed herself in the lives of people in two Millennium villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting the hospitality of camel herders and small-hold farmers, and witnessing their struggle to survive, Munk came to understand the real-life issues that challenge Sachs's formula for ending global poverty. 
 
         THE IDEALIST is the profound and moving story of what happens when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man meet the reality of human life.

reviews

1. • premium: False
   • source:
     Canada's National Business Book Award Finalist
     ISI's Henry and Anne Paolucci Book Award Nominee
   • content: Recipient of Foreign Policy's 2013 Albie Award
     Bloomberg "Best Books of 2013"
     Forbes "Best Books of 2013"
     The Spectator "Best Books of 2013"
2. • premium: False
   • source: Bill Gates
   • content: "Munk draws a nuanced portrait of Sachs and his Millennium Villages Project....worth taking the time to read it. It's a valuable -- and, at times, heartbreaking -- cautionary tale."
3. • premium: False
   • source: The Wall Street Journal
   • content: "A sharply rendered and deeply disillusioned account of [Jeffrey Sachs'] personal quest to end poverty.... With impressive persistence, unflagging empathy and journalistic derring-do, Ms. Munk returns over a five-year period to Dertu and one other village to document the project's progress.... Heartbreaking."
4. • premium: False
   • source: Barrons
   • content:
     "One of the most readable and evocative accounts of foreign aid ever written, The Idealist shows that virtually nothing about such aid is ever easy.... A masterful tale of good intentions gone wrong."
5. • premium: False
   • source: Angus Deaton, The Chronicle of Higher Education (UK)
   • content: "The Idealist is the profound and moving story of what happens when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man meet the reality of human life. Munk's masterpiece . . . is a classic account of how technocratic and externally directed economic development must fail. Munk, a reporter for Vanity Fair, wanted to work on global poverty, and who better to shadow than Sachs, the 'idealist' of the title? But idealism comes with ignorance and hubris, and Munk's documentation of the failure of the Millennium Development Villages, in two of which she lived, ranks with Joseph Conrad in documenting an African descent into failure, destruction and betrayal."
6. • premium: False
   • source: Foreign Policy
   • content: "Writing accessibly about development economics is a high-wire act, but Munk accomplishes it brilliantly. She shadows Sachs as he cajoles world leaders to fund his Millennium projects, and also visits those places to tell the whole story. The final chapter, in which Munk interviews a chastened Sachs (usually an oxymoron), is particularly devastating."
7. • premium: False
   • source: Vanity Fair
   • content: "A fascinating portrait of an innovative thinker as well as a fair-minded examination of his methods. It's also a testament to the enduring value of old-fashioned, shoe-leather reporting--it should be read not just in policy circles but also at J-schools."
8. • premium: False
   • source: The Christian Science Monitor
   • content: "Magnificent.... An absolute must-read for anyone who is interested in doing good for those in need."
9. • premium: False
   • source: Forbes
   • content: "Munk tracks a messianic economist's quixotic attempts to show that he can end African poverty. In one village his team gets farmers to grow maize instead of traditional matoke; there are no buyers for the bumper crop, and rats end up eating much of it. Munk describes a growing gulf between good intentions and hard reality with nuance and sensitivity."
10. • premium: False
    • source: The Guardian
    • content: "An engaging, eye-opening read"
11. • premium: False
    • source: Financial Times
      
    • content: "A highly readable examination of Jeffrey Sachs's Millennium Villages Project in Africa"
12. • premium: False
    • source: The Spectator
      
    • content: "The Idealist tracks the messianic economist Jeffrey Sachs's doomed attempt to solve African poverty by establishing a network of model villages where his pet theories could be tested before being escalated. The author, Nina Munk, who spent six years interviewing Sachs and visiting the Millenium Villages, is a delicate, careful writer. She not only reminds us that there are good, solid reasons why certain areas of the world remain desperately poor, she raises troubling questions about the credibility of an economist embraced by rock singers and film stars."
13. • premium: False
    • source: Fortune
      
    • content: "A fine writer with a gift for deploying spare, vivid detail, Munk overcomes the burden of what could be duller-than-dirt subject matter--the politics of foreign aid; the ins and outs of Uganda's matoke market; NGO infighting over anti-malaria efforts--into a lively and at times, quite funny book."
14. • premium: False
    • source: The Lancet
    • content: "A deep and important book....The Idealist tells the stories behind the numbers and its evidence is as compelling and as important as anything in the data"
15. • premium: False
    • source: The Globe & Mail
    • content: "Munk is a sly, relentless reporter with a gift for wedding her observations to a fluent, even graceful, writing style"
16. • premium: False
    • source: Bloomberg
    • content: "
      "This book is stark proof that approach just does not work....The world needs to pay attention to these lessons and
17. • premium: True
    • source:
    • content:

      April 29, 2013
      Vanity Fair contributing editor Munk (Fools Rush In: Jerry Levin, Steve Case, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner) spent six years chronicling the Millennium Villages Project, the pet project that lauded economist Sachs (The End of Poverty) launched in 2006. The project’s goal was an audacious attempt to prove Sachs’s well-intentioned, but ultimately naïve theories about ending extreme poverty in Africa by focusing on a handful of carefully selected villages with the expectation that their halo effect would spread throughout the country. Munk artfully observes how Sachs’s infectious enthusiasm and optimism bring attention (and funding, including $120 million from George Soros) to the fledgling organization at home and abroad. Sachs ably illustrates how tactics like lacing mosquito nets with insecticides to fight malaria can make significant headway in achieving a larger goal of helping communities improve their circumstances and chances for development.” It’s a noble effort, but Sachs and his compatriots soon find that they wildly underestimated the difficulty of distributing those crucial nets, the impact of drought, as well as the learned helplessness of the recipients. All of these factors contribute to a less-than-ideal outcome. Students of economic policy and altruistic do-gooders alike will find Munk’s work to be a measured, immersive study of a remarkable but all-too-human man who let his vision get the best of him. Agent: Elyse Cheney, Elyse Cheney Literary Associates.

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NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY
Bloomberg • Forbes • The Spectator

Recipient of Foreign Policy's 2013 Albie Award
A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end global poverty
    
 "The poor you will always have with you," to cite the Gospel of Matthew 26:11. Jeffrey Sachs—celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential bestseller The End of Poverty—disagrees.  In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about ending extreme poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development."
 
            In 2006, Sachs launched the Millennium Villages...

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Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty

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Books on Tape

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   • description: History / Africa / General
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   • description: Social Science / Developing & Emerging Countries