Poor Africa, the happy hunting ground of the mythomaniac, the rock star buffing up his or her image, the missionary with a faith to sell, the child buyer, the retailer of dirty drugs or toxic cigarettes, the editor in search of a scoop, the empire builder, the aid worker, the tycoon wishing to rid himself of his millions, the school builder with a bucket of patronage, the experimenting economist, the diamond merchant, the oil executive, the explorer, the slave trader, the eco-tourist, the adventure traveler, the bird watcher, the travel writer, the escapee, the colonial and his crapulosities, the banker, the busybody, the Mandela-sniffer, the political fantasist, the buccaneer and your cousin the Peace Corps Volunteer. Oh, and the atoner, of whom Thoreau observed in a skeptical essay: “Now, if anything ail a man so that he does not perform his functions ... if he has committed some heinous sin and partially repents, what does he do? He sets about reforming the world.” Thoreau, who had Africa specifically in mind, added, “Do you hear it, ye Wolofs?”
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Stanley, I Presume
A review of "Stanley The Impossible Life Of Africa's Greatest Explorer" by Paul Theroux
Poor Africa, the happy hunting ground of the mythomaniac, the rock star buffing up his or her image, the missionary with a faith to sell, the child buyer, the retailer of dirty drugs or toxic cigarettes, the editor in search of a scoop, the empire builder, the aid worker, the tycoon wishing to rid himself of his millions, the school builder with a bucket of patronage, the experimenting economist, the diamond merchant, the oil executive, the explorer, the slave trader, the eco-tourist, the adventure traveler, the bird watcher, the travel writer, the escapee, the colonial and his crapulosities, the banker, the busybody, the Mandela-sniffer, the political fantasist, the buccaneer and your cousin the Peace Corps Volunteer. Oh, and the atoner, of whom Thoreau observed in a skeptical essay: “Now, if anything ail a man so that he does not perform his functions ... if he has committed some heinous sin and partially repents, what does he do? He sets about reforming the world.” Thoreau, who had Africa specifically in mind, added, “Do you hear it, ye Wolofs?”
Poor Africa, the happy hunting ground of the mythomaniac, the rock star buffing up his or her image, the missionary with a faith to sell, the child buyer, the retailer of dirty drugs or toxic cigarettes, the editor in search of a scoop, the empire builder, the aid worker, the tycoon wishing to rid himself of his millions, the school builder with a bucket of patronage, the experimenting economist, the diamond merchant, the oil executive, the explorer, the slave trader, the eco-tourist, the adventure traveler, the bird watcher, the travel writer, the escapee, the colonial and his crapulosities, the banker, the busybody, the Mandela-sniffer, the political fantasist, the buccaneer and your cousin the Peace Corps Volunteer. Oh, and the atoner, of whom Thoreau observed in a skeptical essay: “Now, if anything ail a man so that he does not perform his functions ... if he has committed some heinous sin and partially repents, what does he do? He sets about reforming the world.” Thoreau, who had Africa specifically in mind, added, “Do you hear it, ye Wolofs?”
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
AIDS in Africa: Rising Above the Partisan Babble
It is hard to remember when AIDS was just a simple epidemic disease. Long ago it exploded into a global rallying cry for ideologues of every stripe, politicizing the science and the social science alike. A small army of academics and consultants now stake careers — and millions of international aid dollars — on specific and often conflicting theories of how to reduce behavioral risks for acquiring and transmitting H.I.V.
Amid the partisan babble, Helen Epstein has for years generated some of the most sensible commentary around, posting dispatches from AIDS-afflicted countries in Africa to The New York Review of Books and other publications. As a scientist morphed into a journalist, Dr. Epstein combines an understanding of the biology of AIDS with a coolly impartial view of the political and social landscape of Africa. She has now assembled more than a decade’s worth of reporting into an enlightening and troubling book.
(..)
That said, however, Dr. Epstein’s basic point is quite true: the drugs alone will never save Africa. Prevalence and transmission rates are too high, the health care infrastructure is too weak, there are too many other threatening diseases, and the costs are impossible. Instead, experts agree that hope lies in a still-distant vaccine, and in the “invisible cure” of Epstein’s title: dramatic behavioral changes to prevent new infections.
(..)
Interrupting this perfect storm requires a clear understanding of its origins, and we still cannot fully explain why heterosexually transmitted H.I.V. exploded in Africa while remaining confined to very specific communities in the West. Theories abound, and Dr. Epstein does a nice job of reviewing them.
The fiction that Africans are more “promiscuous” than Westerners has been disproved; studies have found that Africans often have fewer sexual partners during their lifetime than Westerners do.
But accepted patterns of sexual activity seem to have ignited the tinderbox in Africa. Sex there crosses social boundaries more often than in the West, and the habit of having concurrent partners — simultaneous long-term relationships in which friendship and trust may thwart routine condom use — means a single person’s infection may spread rapidly through a group.
Amid the partisan babble, Helen Epstein has for years generated some of the most sensible commentary around, posting dispatches from AIDS-afflicted countries in Africa to The New York Review of Books and other publications. As a scientist morphed into a journalist, Dr. Epstein combines an understanding of the biology of AIDS with a coolly impartial view of the political and social landscape of Africa. She has now assembled more than a decade’s worth of reporting into an enlightening and troubling book.
(..)
That said, however, Dr. Epstein’s basic point is quite true: the drugs alone will never save Africa. Prevalence and transmission rates are too high, the health care infrastructure is too weak, there are too many other threatening diseases, and the costs are impossible. Instead, experts agree that hope lies in a still-distant vaccine, and in the “invisible cure” of Epstein’s title: dramatic behavioral changes to prevent new infections.
(..)
Interrupting this perfect storm requires a clear understanding of its origins, and we still cannot fully explain why heterosexually transmitted H.I.V. exploded in Africa while remaining confined to very specific communities in the West. Theories abound, and Dr. Epstein does a nice job of reviewing them.
The fiction that Africans are more “promiscuous” than Westerners has been disproved; studies have found that Africans often have fewer sexual partners during their lifetime than Westerners do.
But accepted patterns of sexual activity seem to have ignited the tinderbox in Africa. Sex there crosses social boundaries more often than in the West, and the habit of having concurrent partners — simultaneous long-term relationships in which friendship and trust may thwart routine condom use — means a single person’s infection may spread rapidly through a group.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Yes, There Are Two Americas
Review from the WSJ:
WHO REALLY CARES
By Arthur C. Brooks
(Basic, 250 pages, $26) The book's thesis is offered not as a sermon or platitude -- telling people what they ought to be doing -- but as a work of skillful and intensive empirical research, revealing what people are doing already. Our most pervasive cultural assumptions about the generosity of liberals and the stinginess of conservatives turn out to be almost completely wrong.
(..)
If Mr. Brooks is right, our era's common sense of the matter -- that the political left is more compassionate than the political right, and that America is a remarkably ungenerous nation by world standards -- is demonstrably inaccurate. In fact, Sen. John Edwards's repeated claim that there are "two Americas" turns out to be correct but misstated: The line of separation runs most saliently not between the haves and have-nots but between the gives and the give-nots, between those Americans who respond to social needs with their own money and time and those who do not.
Mr. Brooks speaks here with the authority of a liberal who has been mugged by the data. "These are not the sorts of conclusions I ever thought I would reach,"...
(..)
By consulting a wide range of metrics, ranging from rates of charitable giving to hours of volunteer work donated, Mr. Brooks concludes that four distinct forces appear to have primary responsibility for making people behave charitably: religion, skepticism about the government's role in economic life, strong families and personal entrepreneurship. Those Americans who have all four, or at least three, are much more likely to behave charitably than those who do not...
WHO REALLY CARES
By Arthur C. Brooks
(Basic, 250 pages, $26) The book's thesis is offered not as a sermon or platitude -- telling people what they ought to be doing -- but as a work of skillful and intensive empirical research, revealing what people are doing already. Our most pervasive cultural assumptions about the generosity of liberals and the stinginess of conservatives turn out to be almost completely wrong.
(..)
If Mr. Brooks is right, our era's common sense of the matter -- that the political left is more compassionate than the political right, and that America is a remarkably ungenerous nation by world standards -- is demonstrably inaccurate. In fact, Sen. John Edwards's repeated claim that there are "two Americas" turns out to be correct but misstated: The line of separation runs most saliently not between the haves and have-nots but between the gives and the give-nots, between those Americans who respond to social needs with their own money and time and those who do not.
Mr. Brooks speaks here with the authority of a liberal who has been mugged by the data. "These are not the sorts of conclusions I ever thought I would reach,"...
(..)
By consulting a wide range of metrics, ranging from rates of charitable giving to hours of volunteer work donated, Mr. Brooks concludes that four distinct forces appear to have primary responsibility for making people behave charitably: religion, skepticism about the government's role in economic life, strong families and personal entrepreneurship. Those Americans who have all four, or at least three, are much more likely to behave charitably than those who do not...
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Gotta read it!
This is a great book I read last year...Tom Peters, business guru, apparently agrees!
Okay, it's last year's book. But I just found it in Logan airport at the start of my current Madrid-Paris-L.A. trip. Wow! Fantastic! Amazing!
The book: The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade, by Pietra Rivoli. The complex issues of trade, globalization, market-power, and market imperfections are brilliantly told via the life of a single T-shirt. Made in China? Obviously! Sorta. How about "Teksa"? The T-shirt "maker," Chinese, patiently explained to the author that this saga starts in Teksa. That is, West Texas, where the cotton is grown. And why is Texas-the U.S.A. still tops in the global cotton market? Um, our markets are not quite as open as we'd like to make the rest of the world believe. There is no "big political message" here. As a professional economist, the author began the story with a very "open markets" bias. It's not that she lost that bias, but that the can of worms (T-shirt) she opened turned out to be, well, full of worms. Nothing is as it seems; think of this as a product of the John LeCarré School of Economics. Though published in 2005, this is my 2006 "book of the year." No issue.
Okay, it's last year's book. But I just found it in Logan airport at the start of my current Madrid-Paris-L.A. trip. Wow! Fantastic! Amazing!
The book: The Travels of a T-shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade, by Pietra Rivoli. The complex issues of trade, globalization, market-power, and market imperfections are brilliantly told via the life of a single T-shirt. Made in China? Obviously! Sorta. How about "Teksa"? The T-shirt "maker," Chinese, patiently explained to the author that this saga starts in Teksa. That is, West Texas, where the cotton is grown. And why is Texas-the U.S.A. still tops in the global cotton market? Um, our markets are not quite as open as we'd like to make the rest of the world believe. There is no "big political message" here. As a professional economist, the author began the story with a very "open markets" bias. It's not that she lost that bias, but that the can of worms (T-shirt) she opened turned out to be, well, full of worms. Nothing is as it seems; think of this as a product of the John LeCarré School of Economics. Though published in 2005, this is my 2006 "book of the year." No issue.
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