“The poor you will have with you always” – Jesus Christ

I’ve been wanting to get Fields of the Fatherless for some time.  Our friend Antony Mathenia has read it and told us at supper last week, that it would be a great book for those who have good theology, but need to put some meat on the bones.

In looking at the Fields of the Fatherless blog, I saw a book he was reading called The White Man’s Burden : Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill & So Little Good . This went on “the list”.

Fields of the Fatherless was not available anywhere locally, but by beloved wife, Christy, found White Man’s Burden (along with allot of funny looks from the liberals at the counter) at Barnes & Noble & picked it up for me.  After just beginning to read it, I told her that this was the “flip side” of what Anthony had said. If you had theology & compassion, this would give you some realism to make sure that you were effective, and not just busy. Below is a recommendation I wrote for my web site.

Review/Recommended:
The White Man’s Burden
by William Easterly.
Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good
http://www.amazon.com/White-Mans-Burden-Efforts-Little/dp/1594200378

My wife bought me this book the other day & it has been facsinating so far. It is written from a secular perspective, and the limitations of the author’s humanist worldview show through in many places.

But, he also is a world-class economist, an insider’s-insider, and a former World Bank employee who has seen first hand with various “Big Plans” to help end poverty, wipe out this-or-that disease, or other utopian dreams. He has seen how they all failed.

He writes with compassion, wit, cynicism, and hard facts. He particularly shows the failure of all the “Big Plans” that Westerners have come up with to save the 3rd World (sadly, he misses the fact that this is largely because of the humanist foundations)

In one section he details how Great Britan & the united States have sent over $2.3 trillion in foreign aid in the last five decades, but “has not managed to get twelve-cent medicines to children that would prevent half of all malaria deaths . . .” or to “get four dollar bed nets to poor families” . . .etc.

This is then contrasted with the great effetiveness of locally-based, or very narrowly focused efforts. With the efforts that have either some folks who are not trying to “save the world”, but rather trying to help some real people in one location with one specific problem.
The efforts that understand the local culture/ conditions and especially those that have some grasp of free market economics have been highly effective.

Military interventionism and other meddling also take a hard blow.

Get it & read it if you can.