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Sekaiichi Ōkina Mondai No Shinpuru Na Tokikata: Watakushi Ga Hinkon Kaiketsu No Genba De Mananda Koto (2011)

by Paul Polak(Favorite Author)

3.84 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

4862761062 (ISBN13: 9784862761064)

languge

English

genre

Nonfiction

publisher

Eijishuppan

review 1: I am not really someone who gets excited about books on poverty, poverty alleviation, and “social” work in general. Not out of callousness or unconcern with those affected by these issues. I just find most writing on this subject very intellectually shallow, and filled with do-good rhetoric without any concrete realizable effects. In fact, the total lack of success of all well-meaning and over bloated poverty reduction programs, both in the West and the Third World, have made me a bit cynical about the prospects of investing any measure of intellectual effort into trying to understand these problems and appreciate the solutions that really work. So with all that in mind, I was quite amazed with how interesting, educational and inspiring “Out of Poverty” turned out ... moreto be.There are two main features of the book “Out of Poverty” that make it stand out compared to all the other poverty and poverty relief accounts that I’ve come across. The first one is that this is a very hands-on down-to-earth approach to understanding and working with poor people. The author is not a first-world think tank wonk who spends most of his time immersed in the library of some ivory tower institution. He spent a considerable amount of time talking to, and most importantly listening to poor people from around the world. Every page of this book exudes the sense of trust that people who are most affected by poverty are the ones who understand their predicament the best and are able to provide the best insight for the possible solutions to their problems. Which brings me to the second distinguishing feature of this book: its unwavering belief in the enterprising spirit of every human being. There is no stronger antidote to the patronizing cynicism that permeates thinking and discussion of the global poverty than reading this book. The author gives examples, in page after page, of the ingenuity and willingness to try new things exhibited by the small farm owners from all corners of the world. This is a welcome and refreshing alternative to the often bleak outlook that many of the World organizations and institutions often exhibit when it comes to actually believing in ability of the poor to uplift themselves out of poverty by the dint of their own efforts. The book is not without its shortcomings. It feels repetitive and overly focused on just a few topics and products that the author is intimately familiar with (treadle pumps and drip irrigation). There are a few attempts to extend insights from these very successful programs to dealing with poverty in other settings, but they seem naive and not well thought out. (Most of the poorest of the poor in the West have some social and psychological issues that would make them inadequate candidates for an enterprising approach to wealth creation.) Nonetheless, I still think that the insights gleaned from this book are very valuable and an important step in the right direction even for those situations.
review 2: The problem the author has spent his life trying to tackle is extremely important. The ideas in the book are fresh and sound realistic. There are concrete ideas that someone with enough drive should try out, they may work very well. The author's passion towards the subject shows and he creates a pleasant narrative.The problem with the book is that it is very repetitive. Nearly same sentences repeat various times throughout the book, sometimes separated only by a couple of pages. If the editor had simply removed the repetition and released a slimmer book, the flow would have been much better. Despite this problem it's a book worth reading. less

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