New & Current Releases
Archives: A-Z By Title
Archives: A-Z By Author
Advanced Search

All-Time High Scores
Best Of 2006
Best Of 2005
Best Of 2004
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Books In Our Forums

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed books.

The End Of Poverty
Economic Possibilities For Our Time
by Jeffrey D. Sachs


5.3

based on 21 reviews
read critic reviews
how did we calculate this?

based on 10 votes
read user comments
rate this book

Compare prices at pricegrabber.com

Buy it at powells.com

Buy it at amazon.com

Buy it at amazon.co.uk

Columbia University professor, economist, and United Nations advisor Sachs details his plan to eliminate "extreme poverty" around the globe in 20 years. Noted world poverty expert Bono adds a forward.

Penguin Press, 416 pages
03/15/2005
$27.95

ISBN: 1594200459

Nonfiction
Current Events & Politics
Social Sciences

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Publishers Weekly

If there is any one work to put extreme poverty back onto the global agenda, this is it.

Library Journal Lawrence R. Maxted

Informative and impassioned work. [1 May 2005, p.98]

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Stein Ringen

The End of Poverty is a beguiling read, earnest and honest and bursting with energy and confidence, but behind it all Sachs is guilty of a sort of IMF orthodoxy himself in his single-minded emphasis on economic development.

The Independent Clare Short

I like this book very much. It is a very powerful, hard-headed account of how our generation has come to be the first in human history that could remove extreme poverty from the human condition.

Booklist Mary Whaley

This is an excellent, understandable book on a critical topic and should be required reading for students and participants in public policy as well as those who doubt the problem of world poverty can be solved. [15 Feb 2005, p.1043]

Kirkus Reviews

A solid, reasonable argument in which the dismal science offers a brightening prospect for the world's poor.

Salon Farhad Manjoo

At bottom, the book, which is an intriguing mix of memoir, economics text, and polemic, argues that international development is worth pursuing, and that hope is not lost.

San Francisco Chronicle Tom Gallagher

If Sachs spins a theory of economic development full of asterisks explaining why its contradictions are only apparent, then so does most economics, and we should not lose sight of his central point that the human race is looking at its main chance -- ending poverty worldwide over the next quarter century -- and we ought to take it.

The New Yorker John Cassidy

The plan his book lays out is impressive not only in its ambition but in some of its details.

Daily Telegraph Martin Vander Weyer

There can be no doubt that Sachs's is one of the most potent voices in global economics, and that The End of Poverty is a provocative and meticulously argued manifesto.

Washington Post William Easterly

Perhaps someone so gifted and hardworking can be forgiven if his narrative is a little self-serving.

Boston Globe George Scialabba

Sachs, one of the world's leading development economists, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute and special adviser to the UN secretary general, sketches out a sequence of targeted, prioritized investments over 10 to 15 years. After that, if history is any guide, the formerly wretched will begin trading with us, competing with us, and enriching us.

The Economist

The book is an unusual and in some ways slightly odd mixture of personal memoir, economics textbook and development manifesto.

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Tony Keller

It's been said of John Kenneth Galbraith, dismissively, that for a novelist he makes a fine economist. No one will speak as kindly of Sachs's prose. Yet The End of Poverty is persuasive.

The Guardian John Vidal

Sachs seems to be suffering a dose of advanced consultivitis - symptoms include a swollen ego and a fervent belief that you can change the world.

The New York Times Book Review Daniel W. Drezner

Sachs's missionary zeal is infectious, but the flaws in ''The End of Poverty'' should sound important notes of caution.

The Spectator Tim Congdon

Sachs has performed a service by bringing attention to the relatively small sums of money that are needed to tackle the hunger-disease-poverty nexus in sub-Saharan Africa. But he would have been more convincing if he had got his history and geography right, and if he were a little more subtle in his interpretation of what has gone wrong since the end of the old form of colonialism.

Flak Noam Lupu

Not only is Sachs' vision fairly undemocratic, it fails to understand the politics of aid in both rich and poor countries.

The Nation Andrew Rice

One might forgive Sachs's rhetorical overkill if it weren't emblematic of his book's deeper failure to engage with the most serious argument against him: history.

New York Observer Richard Parker

Yet the sheer, raw, unspeakable nakedness of those facts -- and the reasons why they are true -- also underscores the limits to Mr. Sachs' fundamentally technocratic arguments here. Visionary as they are, technically substantiated as they are, morally right as they are, they contain no real analysis of the concentration of power, the maldistribution of wealth, the diversionary mindlessness of our commercialized culture, or the feeble-mindedness of our politics today. [25 Apr 2005, p.20]

Wall Street Journal Claudia Rosett

Ending poverty is devoutly to be desired. If the U.S. cleaves to its own democratic principles in its dealings abroad, we do seem headed for a richer world for all. But no one is going to get there by flipping through the pages of this book.

The average user rating for this book is 5.3 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

ghordie gave it a2:
book sucked, sachs is way too extreme....goals are too high, hes trying to bite off more than he can chew...read william easterlys book "the white mans burden". it counters sachs book and is much more practical.

A Name gave it a4:
As a presentation of answers there is certainly little innovativeness in this volume. It happens however that such is in no way necessary for this book to serve its purpose. Contained within the covers of The End of Poverty is certainly a call to action more so than an introduction of a plan, but I fail to see how that doesn’t fit the title. Rather, the book suffers from being far too emotionless in prose as to accomplish even this and also from droning on through a set of repeats where finally as he reaches the end he italicizes the lines and declares once more “the point is….” for each one. Truth is, a large amount of what is reported in no way serves the reader’s particular want for knowledge in having picked this up and indeed by the end the reader is left with the sad sensation that the numbers have been twisted on them even by this man of respectable status, whether the words are libel or not. Also pitifully enough, the man’s lack of experience in being impoverished bleeds through every word. The only thing that salvages the few points I have given it is the existence of a plethora of facts and that it is well written even if its matter is not fitting.

Rachel C gave it a5:
Overall, this book contains a very dry, unemotional interpretation of how to end poverty. After the first six chapters ithe economic babble sounds like blah, blah, blah. The truth is, despite Sachs feelings industrialized countries are just too caught up in making money that they fail to remember to give. History repeats itself. This is a dry book that means well.

Richard C gave it a9:
I have read the book. As a middle aged activist in favour of huge increases in aid from the rich countries, I found the arguments well made. The personal material made a good read as well.

[Anonymous] gave it a1:
Jeffrey Sachs displays the same narrow economic approach to development that has characterised the mainstream development consensus over the past 60 years. Given 60 years of failure, why should more funding or a bit of tweaking make any difference? This book completely fails to address the real issues that underly global poverty in anything more than a cursory fashion - if at all.

anthony a gave it a10:
The author makes a fascinating and articulate argument for the eradication of extreme poverty to the developed world. Human existence will only continue to exist if human beings serves as their fellow keepers

The End Of Poverty Economic Possibilities For Our Time by Jeffrey D. Sachs

The End Of Poverty
Economic Possibilities For Our Time
by Jeffrey D. Sachs