A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end global poverty
Nina Munk, a contributing editor atVanity Fair, is a journalist and the author ofFools Rush In- Steve Case, Jerry Levin, and the Unmaking of AOL Time Warner. She was previously a senior writer atFortune,and before that a senior editor atForbes. Her work has appeared inVanity Fair, theNew York Times Magazine, theNew Yorker,Fortune, and theNew York Times. She lives in New York.
Recipient of Foreign Policy's 2013 Albie Award
Bloomberg "Best Books of 2013"
Forbes "Best Books of 2013"
The Spectator "Best Books of 2013"
Canada's National Business Book Award Finalist
ISI’s Henry and Anne Paolucci Book Award Nominee
"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." —Bill
Gates
"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." —The Wall
Street Journal
"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." —William Easterly, Barron’s
“A stark reminder that the war against poverty is not yet won. A
must-read.” —Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid
"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." —Foreign Policy
"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."
—Vanity Fair
“Magnificent. . . . An absolute must-read for anyone who is
interested in doing good for those in need.” —The Christian Science
Monitor
"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." —Forbes
"An engaging, eye-opening read." —The Guardian
"A highly readable examination of Jeffrey Sachs’s Millennium
Villages Project in Africa"
—Financial Times
"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." —The Spectator
"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." —Fortune
"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." —The Lancet
"Munk is a sly, relentless reporter with a gift for wedding her
observations to a fluent, even graceful, writing style" —The Globe
& Mail
"This book is stark proof that approach just does not work. . . .
The world needs to pay attention to these lessons and stop wasting
resources." —Bloomberg
"Nina Munk's brilliant book on [Jeffrey] Sachs' anti-poverty
efforts, chronicles how his dream fell far short of reality"
—Reason
"Written over six years, with exhaustive on-the-ground reporting
from two African communities that are part of MVP village clusters,
[Nina] Munk’s book is a readable and fast-paced chronicle of the
real-world consequences of elite intellectual
arrogance....Munk’s authoritative telling of Sach’s story is
most valuable as an exhortation to intellectual humility, and a
compulsively readable portrait of a man without any."
—Commentary
"A fascinating and essential exploration of what goes wrong when
unchecked audacity and clinical precision encounter the frailties,
ambiguities, and unpredictabilities of human beings, societies and
histories." —The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Not only an important book, but a truly enjoyable read. She does
not boast, but the reader cannot avoid the impression that her
intrepid years in Sachsland have demanded all the inner steel of
the most hardened explorer or war correspondent." —The Weekly
Standard
“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.”
—Publishers Weekly
"Trenchant and thought-provoking." —Kirkus Reviews
"A fine contrarian polemic full to brimming with excellent
reporting." —The Globe & Mail
"Heart-rending. . . . The catalogue of bright ideas that go
awry would be funny if it weren’t so tragic." —National Post
"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.” —Vanity Fair Daily
"A devastating portrait of hubris and its consequences.” —Pacific
Standard
"A fascinating and essential exploration of what goes wrong when
unchecked audacity and clinical precision encounter the frailties,
ambiguities, and unpredictabilities of human beings, societies and
histories.” —The Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Nina Munk has written a fascinating book about a fascinating
man—and even more important, about a set of ideas that are
intriguing and important.” —Fareed Zakaria, editor-at-large of Time
magazine and author of New York Times Bestseller The Post-American
World
“Jeffrey Sachs is a global phenomenon: no one thinks as big, makes
a more passionate case for foreign aid, and works as hard to make
the dream of ending global poverty a reality. This terrific book
gives you a ringside seat on Sachs’s tireless global quest to get
donors, governments, international agencies, private firms, and
poor farmers to buy into his vision of economic development. Nina
Munk’s portrayal goes beyond the man and his dream; it is a
clear-headed depiction of the challenges the world’s poorest face
as they struggle to improve their lives.” —Dani Rodrik, Professor
of International Political Economy at Harvard University and author
of The Globalization Paradox
"A riveting narrative that must be read to
understand why the over $700 billion pumped into Africa
by the West since
1960 has achieved so little. This powerful book
will shake up the foreign aid development community." —George
Ayittey, President of the Free Africa Foundation, and author
of Africa Unchained
"A powerful exposé of hubris run amok, drawing on touching accounts
of real-life heroes fighting poverty on the front line." —Robert
Calderisi, author of The Trouble with Africa
“The Idealist confirms that in the quest to end extreme
poverty in Africa, the truly wise and resonant voices are those of
the Africans themselves.” —Roger Thurow, author of The
Last Hunger Season
"Nina Munk’s incisive, moving and elegantly written report takes us
to Africa to see first-hand that the poor don’t need one more
central planner with the prescription for prosperity.
What the poor need is what really made the rich rich – the legal
devices to join their continent’s vast, dispersed
natural and human resources into valuable combinations
through their own collective action." —Hernando de Soto, President
of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy, and author of The
Mystery of Capital
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