- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Press; 1st Edition edition (17 Mar 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1594200459
- ISBN-13: 978-1594200458
- Product Dimensions: 23.9 x 15.7 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 397,903 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The End of Poverty
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Plus, get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Jeffrey D. Sachs 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 laserlike analysis, Jeffrey Sachs sets the stage by drawing a vivid conceptual map of the world economy and the different categories into which countries fall. Then, in a tour de force of elegance and compression, he explains why, over the past two hundred years, wealth has diverged across the planet in the manner that it has and why the poorest nations have been so markedly unable to escape the cruel vortex of poverty. The groundwork laid, he explains his methods for arriving, like a clinical internist, at a holistic diagnosis of a country's situation and the options it faces. 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.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
56 of 64 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Jeffrey Sach's book should be listed in the biographies and not in the economics section. Filled with generalisations and shortcuts and forwarded by an awestruck Bono, it fails to impress. Once one reaches the end of the book where the recipe to end poverty follows Dr. Sachs world travels, he/she will find the Gap Financing approach to development. The main idea is to indentify the national savings rate, the projected needed investment rate and fill the gap by aid. This pretty much has been the ineffectual method used since the end of WWII to address issues of underdevelopment. A quick survey of the literature (especially Easterly, 2001) can show its limitations. At least Dr. Sachs largely avoids presenting us too rudely with the usual neoliberal orthodoxy paraded by the World Bank and the IMF around the globe. Worth reading but probably not worth applying.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Broadly speaking, this is an excellent book, packed full with new insights, clear solutions and interesting case studies drawing on a wealth of experience Jeffrey Sachs has in the development economics field. The maps and graphs interspersed in the text were also a welcome addition - too few books use them to full effect.
My only complaints are that (a) at times it read like a bit like biography and (b) it is too short! Often my interest was sparked on a complex issue, only to have it dealt with in a very broad brush way.
In general, though, it is a definite must-read.
My only complaints are that (a) at times it read like a bit like biography and (b) it is too short! Often my interest was sparked on a complex issue, only to have it dealt with in a very broad brush way.
In general, though, it is a definite must-read.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
As Sachs has spent many years working for the World Bank and the forward of his latest book was by Bono, I was very skeptical of this book. However, I found the first half of this book interesting. It described the history of global economics, why countries have developed at different rates and there were case studies of economic reforms in India, China, Poland and Hungary. Although the case studies were economically interesting and very readable, I felt the name dropping and Sachs ego got a little tiring after a while.
The concept I liked most in this book was how Sachs used a `clinical diagnosis' of economic difficulties that countries faced which took into account geography, politics and health. This also highlighted the importance of individual countries developing their own policies for development, and not having a one size fits all policy forced upon them from the World Bank or IMF. I think this is a conclusion that most people who work within the World Bank soon realise, but often too late.
I was less impressed with the second half of the book which aimed to describe how to end poverty. The answer was to increase funding from developing countries, written in detail for too many pages. Although this may be beneficial, I expected more innovation and creativity by a World Renowned Economic Professor. After finishing the book, I felt he had wasted his time writing the second half. This perhaps demonstrates that there are no quick fixes to problems as complex as poverty but surely one of the most influential people in the world could have come up with a better idea than simply giving more money? I won't be recommending this book to anyone.
The concept I liked most in this book was how Sachs used a `clinical diagnosis' of economic difficulties that countries faced which took into account geography, politics and health. This also highlighted the importance of individual countries developing their own policies for development, and not having a one size fits all policy forced upon them from the World Bank or IMF. I think this is a conclusion that most people who work within the World Bank soon realise, but often too late.
I was less impressed with the second half of the book which aimed to describe how to end poverty. The answer was to increase funding from developing countries, written in detail for too many pages. Although this may be beneficial, I expected more innovation and creativity by a World Renowned Economic Professor. After finishing the book, I felt he had wasted his time writing the second half. This perhaps demonstrates that there are no quick fixes to problems as complex as poverty but surely one of the most influential people in the world could have come up with a better idea than simply giving more money? I won't be recommending this book to anyone.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A global 'nation changer' and proof that one man can make a difference
I bought this book on a recommendation and wasn't really sure whether I wanted to read a book written by an economist. Well, this book is a true 'eye opener. Read more
Published 12 days ago by M. Ahmed
Strong medicine
Jeffrey Sachs has an optimist's confidence, which makes this book an encouraging read. He brings wide experience, clear argument and deep thought to the problems of poverty. Read more
Published 28 days ago by Barney Mayhew
Loaned from library, lated purchased
I was recommended this book from my lecturer to help with an assignment at university, I took it out on a three week loan from the library, but when I came to renew the book it had... Read more
Published 6 months ago by Z. W. Ball
A bit late, but otherwise fine
Arrived one week late, whose fault this is is unknown. It is a copy from a library somewhere in the UK and the item was cheap. Read more
Published 10 months ago by belynchy
Informative
The themes of Sachs' book are: Arguments for how development aid have helped to end poverty in the past, how development aid could help ending poverty in the future, and why... Read more
Published 10 months ago by Alexander Sokol
End of Poverty?
Informative, passionate, a bit pro-West. The White Man's Burden by William Easterly is better I find.
Published 22 months ago by JustAWoman
Increasing my awareness
The book starts with a general review of the current world situation and its history. As a person unfamiliar with much of this, especially the history I found this really... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mrs. J. Franklin
Useful, if flawed, study of poverty
Jeffrey Sachs is special adviser on the UN's Millennium Development Goals to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon. The Goals are to halve extreme poverty by 2015 and end it by 2025. Read more
Published on 11 Jun 2009 by William Podmore
More Aid?
Professor Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a world-renowned expert on development. Read more
Published on 3 Jan 2009 by A. O. P. Akemu
Novel Approach to Development Economics
This book is breath-taking in scope, pulsating with captivating optimism and inspiring in its bold proposals. For Jeffrey Sachs, no mountain is too steep or too high to climb. Read more
Published on 29 April 2008 by Joe Keguro Muhindi
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
