100 books like Lords of Poverty

I cherish this groundbreaking book because it clarified to me the role of State bureaucracy behind various social phenomena, among which are: the connection between bureaucrats' power and violent behavior and the profound impact of State agencies on immigrants' integration processes.

The book's theoretical approach, which is based on power-dependence relations, encouraged me in analyzing the absorption of immigrants from Ethiopia (my PhD thesis) in terms of bureaucratic control rather than through cultural background and differences.

Not less important, this book was authored by the late Prof. Emanuel Marx, who was my admired supervisor and a very dear friend for over 40 years.  

This book served me greatly in teaching courses on education and social stratification in Israel.

Its ethnography is fascinating and although it was published some 55 years ago its insights are still compelling and relevant. The book exposes the veiled bureaucratic interests which pull the strings behind the curtains of the educational system rather than ideals of justice and equity.

This critical analysis influenced my understanding with regard to the emergence of discrimination and racism that were the outcomes of concentrating Ethiopian children in separate classes for a long time.    

I think that Riane Eisler's book is a must-read piece for feminists, historians, and social activists working for justice and equality.

The book offered me an original outlook on male dominance in human society over the ages. Learning that women had an immense impact on the emergence of the major religions was exhilarating. The historical descriptions of the evolution of patriarchy demonstrated how it was constructed through the marginalization and exclusion of women from leading positions and by the use of violence.

My work on the sex industry, indicating how the exploitation of women's sexuality served in establishing males' dominance was significantly influenced by this book. 

In 1975, Hilary Callan published a paper on diplomats’ wives using the term incorporated wife.

In this edited volume, she and Shirley Ardener applied that concept to a broader set of occupations. I find it brilliant because the term alludes to the idea of marriage as two bodies becoming one while calling out the asymmetry of this corporeality, wives being “drawn into the ‘social person’ of their husbands”, as Callan puts it in the book’s introduction.

The term also connotes the couple as a corporation, which has helped me to think about how diplomatic couples work together. With its collection of articles, the volume acknowledges differences depending on context. At the same time, it shows how one general mechanism – the incorporation of wives – has consequences far beyond the personal.

I strongly recommend this book because it is clearly written, explains the methods of estimation, and provides an excellent overview of the extensive worldwide research on the returns to education based on earnings.

It certainly influenced me. It had a massive impact on World Bank lending policies in support of economic development in developing countries. It replaced the kinds of Bank physical capital investment policies such as those supporting dam construction, projects that included educating only for a few people on how to operate dams, with education sector-wide loans that support primary and junior secondary education of the labor force.

Some of these dams later washed out, and forests were destroyed in support of development. The book shows how the returns to investment in primary and secondary education are higher in developing countries where the labor force is often nearly illiterate than they are to investing in other higher levels… show more.

“I hear people say we have to stop and debate globalization. You might as well debate whether autumn should follow summer.”

In 2005, Tony Blair told his party that a new, free-market, globalized form of capitalism was inevitable. Filipino theorist, activists and later politician Walden Bello begged to differ. He believed globalization was a political choice, and one that suited Western elites and their multinational corporations, at the expense of the mass of humanity.

In Deglobalization, Bello sets out to show how things could be different, imagining a more diverse international economy centred on the principle of being as democratic as possible.

The book, written in a very accessible manner, helps to understand the constraints the poor face and how they make decisions on matters such as education, healthcare, savings, entrepreneurship, and a variety of other issues.

Duflo and Banerjee, recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics, advocate for the use of randomized controlled trials and, most importantly, to actually listen to what the poor have to say.

The book won the 2011 Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. To me, it was an eye-opener and a refreshing way to rethink poverty reduction.

When people talk about human rights and sovereign debt, it is usually when the government cannot pay its obligations and squeezes its citizens in the effort.

Who will speak up to protect those people? Thirty authors (including your correspondent) aim to do just that.

While one essay claims that creditor (property) rights trump human rights in international law, most of the authors discuss how to bring human rights into the legal landscape governing different types of foreign loans or investment, or how to protect the rights to food, health, education and more when the International Monetary Fund and creditors demand austerity.

Other essays propose international legal reforms (including arbitral, soft law, and “anti-vulture” litigation). Scholars, activists, or just the curious will want to consult this important and thoroughly accessible volume.

Most debts embody a legal contract specifying how and when the borrowed funds will be repaid and any circumstances in which the obligation can be amended.

Non-payment of most loan contracts end up before a judge whose decisions on repayment are guided by a national bankruptcy law. Debts of sovereign states differ.

Insolvent governments negotiate partial or delayed repayment with their various creditors. The starting point is always that the contracts must be honored.

Professor Lienau argues that there are instances in legal theory and historically in practice in which governments did not and should not have had to repay “illegitimate” debts. She calls for international recognition of a legally enforceable concept of “responsible” lending and borrowing.

Imagine how that might make creditors think twice about lending to oppressive regimes?

This book is like the other side of the coin to Sex and World Peace.

In that book, the authors articulate the connection between gender inequality and global suffering through statistics, whereas Half the Sky describes it in individual stories. It is moving to hear about these women’s suffering, but it is also uplifting to hear how they have overcome.

This book is an excellent resource for understanding how gender equality leads to increasing economic growth while reducing global poverty and inequality. It is an important tool in any ordinary hero’s toolkit.