Reframing Poverty

In this category, we promote books that we believe provide the best comprehensive introduction to global development. Our goal is to promote books that posit different solutions to the social problems of the world. At times these books contradict each other. At others, they don’t overlap at all, but rather focus on completely different methods for social change. Each book poses solutions to social problems, and are all related to finding solutions to poverty.

How to Change the World, by David Bornstein: This book illustrates a people-centered approach built around the concept of social entrepreneurship.

The End of Poverty, by Jeffrey Sachs: This book provides a macroscopic view of global poverty and maps a potential path, spearheaded by the UN, to end poverty by 2025.

The White Man’s Burden, by William Easterly: Here, William Easterly writes a critique of The End of Poverty, referring to past failed attempts to end poverty through a large scale planned effort.

The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, by C.K. Prahalad: Prahalad points to the importance of wide scale involvement of the private sector in eradicating poverty.