The End of Poverty

An ambitious title but after you read it you'll be convinced its possible.

"Clinical Economics": The future of global fiscal policy and development.

Written by Economics Superstar Jeffrey Sachs with a forward by Bono (which is suprisingly cogent and sanctimony-free), it is not just a brilliant analysis of history of economic development and the root causes of disparity, it is an evangelical call-to-arms to the Western world to commit to a full-out economic rescue mission of the developing world as a moral imperative. Which, of course, appeals to me.

Full review coming soon...(no really, I mean it!) In the meantime, I encourage everyone to follow the Jeffrey Sachs link and read up on this guy...he's kind of a geeky hero of mine. Here's a short bio I plagerized:

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is also Director of the UN Millennium Project and Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan on the Millennium Development Goals, the internationally agreed goals to reduce extreme poverty, disease, and hunger by the year 2015. Sachs is internationally renowned for advising governments in Latin America, Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Asia and Africa on economic reforms and for his work with international agencies to promote poverty reduction, disease control, and debt reduction of poor countries. He was recently named among the 100 most influential leaders in the world by Time Magazine. He is author of hundreds of scholarly articles and many books. Sachs was recently elected into the Institute of Medicine and is a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years at Harvard University, most recently as Director of the Center for International Development. A native of Detroit, Michigan, Sachs received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees at Harvard University."