Banker to the Poor: Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

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It's a hit!

This was an excellent book and one I would highly recommend . In Muhammad Yunus's own words:

I have always believed that the elimination of p... (show more)

This was an excellent book and one I would highly recommend . In Muhammad Yunus's own words:

I have always believed that the elimination of poverty from the world is a matter of will. Even today we don't pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldn't be poor.
When we want to help the poor, we usually offer them charity. Most often we use charity to avoid recognizing the problem and finding a solution for it. Charity becomes a way to shrug off our responsibility. But charity is no solution for poverty. Charity only perpetuates poverty by taking the iniative away from the poor. Charity allows us to go ahead with our own lives without worrying about the lives of the poor. Charity appeases our consciences. (show less)

 

 

by John Livingston

No, it's a flop!

Wonderful concept, amazing achievments against many odds, a true contributor to emmulate... was surprised how ego-centric the tone of this book was... (show more)

Wonderful concept, amazing achievments against many odds, a true contributor to emmulate... was surprised how ego-centric the tone of this book was, however, given what this man has done with his life, maybe it was just the writing style and the fact that he was writing in a non-native language. (show less)

 

 

by Anonymous User

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  The remarkable story of a remarkable person who decided to change the world and set out and did just that.

  Yunus wrote the book before receiving his Nobel, and judging from his moderately self-aggrandizing style, it takes more than a bit of self-promotion to beat out everyone else in the world for the prize -- though it's not excessive or a major distraction from the story. The asides on basic economic theory were instructive.

  There is something ironic, though, in the fact that the vas... (show more)

  The remarkable story of a remarkable person who decided to change the world and set out and did just that.

  Yunus wrote the book before receiving his Nobel, and judging from his moderately self-aggrandizing style, it takes more than a bit of self-promotion to beat out everyone else in the world for the prize -- though it's not excessive or a major distraction from the story. The asides on basic economic theory were instructive.

  There is something ironic, though, in the fact that the vast majority of his readers are probably educated middle-class first-worlders, and thus very removed from both the rock-bottom destitute people that have benefited from Grameen, and the rarified elite world (Fulbright scholar Ph.D, and lots and lots of connections in the Bangladeshi government) that Yunus was part of and without which he could never have made his vision come true. (show less)

   

   

  by Paul Richter on Jul 25, 2008 at 03:07PM

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  Muhammad Yunus, Superman.

  I was stunned to read about the challenges that Yunus and his colleagues had to surmount to make microcredit successful in his native Bangladesh. The greatest of which in my opinion were the cultural oppression of women, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, and the violent chaos in some regions of the country. That Grameen was able to overcome these -- not to mention many other obstacles (e.g. bureaucratic inertia, resistance of elites and vested int... (show more)

  Muhammad Yunus, Superman.

  I was stunned to read about the challenges that Yunus and his colleagues had to surmount to make microcredit successful in his native Bangladesh. The greatest of which in my opinion were the cultural oppression of women, the frequency and severity of natural disasters, and the violent chaos in some regions of the country. That Grameen was able to overcome these -- not to mention many other obstacles (e.g. bureaucratic inertia, resistance of elites and vested interests, etc.) -- is humbling and inspiring at the same time.

  Yunus writes clearly and simply, and while more results-oriented readers might want a more detailed analysis of the impact of microcredit in the countries where it has been used, for an introduction to the concept and an outline of its history and founder, this book does the job nicely. (show less)

   

  by Facebook User on Apr 02, 2008 at 12:45PM

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