A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity - Couverture rigide

Kristof, Nicholas D.; Wudunn, Sheryl

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0385349912 ISBN 13 : 9780385349918

Editeur : Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2014

A propos du livre

Revue de presse :

“Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn show you, through many amazing vignettes matched with serious evidence, that you can make a difference....Read this book. Seize one of the many opportunities it lists, and change lives for the better, including your own.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“A Path Appears is an exhaustive though not exhausting profile of giving, with surprising guidance—indeed, coaching—on how to be an effective giver....Upon finishing the book, readers are likely to...find themselves willing to do something in the world, unconcerned by questions of scale, but instead, to simply become more engaged, and in that, alive.”
—The Boston Globe

“[A Path Appears] opens an important conversation for anyone interested in how to contribute to catalyzing positive change...[it] sheds light on the exploitation and inequity that exist in our own backyard, while also spotlighting the individuals overcoming it.”
—Christian Science Monitor

“Readers will be inspired by the stories [Kristof and WuDunn] tell....There are so many problems in the world, and so many organizations wanting charitable donations, that we can sometimes feel overwhelmed. [The authors] help us weed through those issues and find that path so we can make a difference.”
—National Geographic.com

“Engaging and informative...Kristof and WuDunn’s commitment and passion for substantial action is inspiring.”
—Publishers Weekly

“[Kristof and WuDunn’s] vibrant portraits of ordinary citizens who are motivated to effect real and dramatic change present a rallying call to action and a voice for the power of volunteerism....This is a slow-go read in the most positive sense; it is hard not to constantly put down the book in order to further investigate the many exemplary causes that are profiled.”
—Booklist

“The authors deliver a profound message that packs a wallop.”
—Kirkus

“A Path Appears...shows how someone with little can make a massive difference to the world we live in.”
—The Christian Post

“This is a lyrical guide that addresses the deep human yearning to make a difference. It’s full of indelible stories reminding us that, yes, helping people is hard—but it’s both possible and infinitely rewarding. A Path Appears offers practical steps that any of us can take to empower others, and ourselves.”
—Anne Rice 
 
“Nobody clarifies the social challenges of our time, or the moral imperative to help meet them, better than Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Their latest book, A Path Appears, offers an inspiring roundup of the many simple and effective ways in which we can lend our hearts and talents to grow hope and opportunity both at home and around the globe—and an important reminder that just because we can’t do everything doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something.”
—President Bill Clinton
 
“Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have done us all a great service by shining a light on the problems faced by the poor. These stories of real people struggling for survival and opportunity serve as a powerful reminder that poverty is complex and painful, but the call to action doesn’t need to be. With insight, compassion and optimism, Kristof and WuDunn show us that we can all play a role in making the world a better place. A Path Appears is a compelling read that can’t help but to educate and energize.”
—Bill and Melinda Gates, co-chairs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
 
 “Cold facts, flesh and blood stories - the written word is their loud hailer. They write, we read, and our world view is not the same. Nick and Sheryl’s meticulous arguments and free flowing eloquence is what inspires their readers to become activists...myself included.”
—Bono, lead singer of U2 and Co-Founder of ONE and (RED)

“A Path Appears is an insightful book focused on how individuals can contribute to positive change and the remarkable people behind the organizations that make it happen. The authors’ desire to motivate people to support good causes, learn about the situation in other countries, and find the best way to help their fellow men and women is inspiring.”
—Angelina Jolie
 
“This book is a class act. Its insights and honesty touch me on the deepest of levels and inspire me to raise my game to help the poor.”
—Bill Hybels, founding pastor, Willow Creek Community Church

“Helping suffering people around the world to transform their own lives is a rewarding challenge we all share as citizens of a global community. A Path Appears is a helpful and inspiring guide for anyone who wonders what difference a single person can make in building a more hopeful world.”
— President Jimmy Carter, founder of the not-for-profit Carter Center

“Rare is the book that can actually transform us into better, more fulfilled people. Having combed through the research and documented case studies all over the world, Kristof and WuDunn present the clearest view I have ever seen of the human soul. A Path Appears tells us whether we are intrinsically good, why specific ways we parent our newborns help predict their chances for success, and how we can live lives of greater significance. This book, full of rich and riveting true stories, reminds us that human greatness is all around us, and even within us, if we dare to look.”
—Ann Curry

“Have you ever thought that compared with so many people in the world, you are blessed and should try to help those less fortunate—but you worry that you just don’t know how to do it in a smart and effective way? Your problem has been solved.  Read this engaging, moving, inspiring book. It will tell you about the world’s myriad problems but also the dazzling array of efforts to solve them. It will tell you how you can make a difference—even if all you have is ten minutes or forty dollars. And it will remind you that by giving to others you will gain for yourself the ultimate gift, a meaningful life.”
—Fareed Zakaria

“While reading A Path Appears, I felt I was taking a much needed rest under a shaded grove of trees on my own journey to ‘make a difference.’ I highly recommend it as an absolutely terrific investment of time that will leave those who read it more hopeful and motivated.”    
—Deborah Fikes, executive advisor of the World Evangelical Alliance

Extrait :

Dr. Gary Slutkin was back in Chicago, his hometown, feeling restless. He was a rumpled infectious diseases specialist who had spent most of his career in San Francisco and Africa, battling tuberculosis, AIDS, and cholera. But he had burned out in refugee camps, his marriage had fallen apart, and now it was time to be nearer to his elderly parents. He had no clue what to do for work.

As he explored options, Slutkin began hearing about gang violence in Chicago, about ten-year-olds shooting other kids; this was shocking, but it also sounded more like Somalia and other places he knew. Slutkin began to study inner-city violence and pored over graphs of homicides and shootings—and to an epidemiologist they all seemed oddly familiar.

“It hit me: this is an infectious disease,” he said. The more Slutkin looked at urban violence, the more he felt that it had been misdiagnosed as solely a crime problem when in many ways it was a contagion analogous to cholera or leprosy. As with other contagions, an infection depends upon exposure among susceptible people who have low resistance or compromised immunity. Slutkin saw that “an epidemic of violence” is more than just a metaphor; in some ways murder actually spreads like a contagious disease.

“It is just as tuberculosis begets tuberculosis, or flu begets flu,” Slutkin says, “that violence begets violence.”

Once Slutkin had the insight that violence could be considered, in part, an infectious disease, he decided to tackle it as a public health problem and slow the epidemic. He started an organization called Cure Violence, and turned to ex-convicts and former gang members to act as health outreach workers and interrupt the contagion. When someone is shot, they go to the hospital room to counsel against a retaliatory hit. They gather intelligence on threats and negotiate peaceful solutions. More broadly, they try to change community norms so that those who use violence are scorned rather than respected. “Violence is learned behavior,” says Gary Slutkin. “Violence can also be unlearned behavior.”

In recent years, the Cure Violence model has spread to other cities in the United States and abroad—even to Iraq and Colombia—and results have been remarkable. Careful evaluations have found that Cure Violence can reduce serious violence by one-quarter or more, at a negligible cost. Gary Slutkin thinks that with some tweaking and enough resources, the model could reduce homicides by 70 percent.

Rachel Beckwith, Lester Strong, and Dr. Gary Slutkin reflect a yearning to express our humanity by finding innovative and effective ways to give back. We crave meaning and purpose in life, and one way to find it is to connect to a cause larger than ourselves. This book is about innovators who are using research, evidence- based strategies, and brilliant ideas of their own to prevent violence, improve health, boost education, and spread opportunity at home and around the world—and to suggest to the rest of us specific ways in which we too can make a difference in the world. Some of these people we highlight raise or contribute the money, such as Rachel and her family and admirers who made something inspiring out of a tragedy. Some are organizers, such as Slutkin and Strong. Many more are foot soldiers. Together, they are all part of a revolution in tack- ling social problems, employing new savvy, discipline, and experience to chip away at poverty and injustice. On many issues ranging from failing schools in America to intestinal parasites in Africa, there are fascinating new approaches to making a difference; in some cases, the progress is startling.

So many social problems in the twenty-first century seem intractable and insoluble. We explore Mars and embed telephones in wrist- watches, but we can’t keep families safe in the inner cities. We can map subatomic particles such as gluons, and we can design robots that drive cars, respond to speech, and defeat grandmasters in chess, but we grudgingly accept failure in our struggles to keep kids in school, off drugs, and out of gangs. Many of us know that it’s wrong and unfair that boys growing up in certain zip codes are more likely to end up in prison than in college, but we throw up our hands and surrender to the exigencies of ghetto life. Violence and poverty, whether in Congo or Chicago, remain towering realities.

We started our married life together as foreign correspondents for The New York Times, and we have wondered for years how we can do a better job addressing the needs around us. Not everyone can help fight crime in a city’s worst neighborhoods or volunteer in schools, so most of us are left to engage in piecemeal efforts such as a donation here or there. Like many Americans, we have day jobs we need to keep, and we have been busy raising our children; that has left us looking for great causes and people to support in modest ways. We aren’t regular churchgoers who focus our giving on a particular religious establishment, and although we wanted to lend a hand, we never knew how to choose among the appeals from nonprofits that inundated us. Basically, we were mystified about how best to assist at home as well as abroad. So we investigated how one can do a better job of making a difference, how one can help institute effective change. This book is the fruit of our labors.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Date d'édition: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0385349912
• ISBN 13: 9780385349918
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 382