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A vivid, sweeping, and "fact-filled" (Booklist, starred review)
history of mankind's battles with infectious disease that
"contextualizes the COVID-19 pandemic" (Publishers Weekly)-for
readers of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Yuval Harari's Sapiens
and John Barry's The Great Influenza. For four thousand years, the
size and vitality of cities, economies, and empires were heavily
determined by infection. Striking humanity in waves, the cycle of
plagues set the tempo of civilizational growth and decline, since
common response to the threat was exclusion-quarantining the sick
or keeping them out. But the unprecedented hygiene and medical
revolutions of the past two centuries have allowed humanity to free
itself from the hold of epidemic cycles-resulting in an urbanized,
globalized, and unimaginably wealthy world. However, our
development has lately become precarious. Climate and population
fluctuations and factors such as global trade have left us more
vulnerable than ever to newly emerging plagues. Greater global
cooperation toward sustainable health is urgently required-such as
the international efforts to manufacture and distribute a COVID-19
vaccine-with millions of lives and trillions of dollars at stake.
"A timely, lucid look at the role of pandemics in history" (Kirkus
Reviews), The Plague Cycle reveals the relationship between
civilization, globalization, prosperity, and infectious disease
over the past five millennia. It harnesses history, economics, and
public health, and charts humanity's remarkable progress, providing
a fascinating and astute look at the cyclical nature of infectious
disease.
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This
IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced
typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have
occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor
pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original
artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe
this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing
commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We
appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the
preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy
Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive
selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to
reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional
imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor
pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues
beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving and promoting the world's literature.
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy
Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive
selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to
reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional
imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor
pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues
beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving and promoting the world's literature.
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This
IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced
typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have
occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor
pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original
artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe
this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections,
have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing
commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We
appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the
preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy
Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive
selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to
reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional
imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor
pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues
beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving and promoting the world's literature.
This scarce antiquarian book is included in our special Legacy
Reprint Series. In the interest of creating a more extensive
selection of rare historical book reprints, we have chosen to
reproduce this title even though it may possibly have occasional
imperfections such as missing and blurred pages, missing text, poor
pictures, markings, dark backgrounds and other reproduction issues
beyond our control. Because this work is culturally important, we
have made it available as a part of our commitment to protecting,
preserving and promoting the world's literature.
A volume on the nature, ingredients, causes, and consequences of
human happiness by the father and son team of Anthony and Charles
Kenny, this book is an updating of Samuel Johnson's famous lines:
"How small of all that human hearts endure. That part which laws or
kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place
consigned. Our own felicity we make or find."
As the income gap between developed and developing nations grows,
so grows the cacophony of voices claiming that the quest to find a
simple recipe for economic growth has failed. Getting Better , in
sharp contrast, reports the good news about global progress.
Economist Charles Kenny argues against development naysayers by
pointing to the evidence of widespread improvements in health,
education, peace, liberty- and even happiness. Kenny shows how the
spread of cheap technologies, such as vaccines and bed nets, and
ideas, such as political rights, has transformed the world. He also
shows that by understanding this transformation, we can make the
world an even better place to live. That's not to say that life is
grand for everyone, or that we don't have a long way to go. But
improvements have spread far, and, according to Kenny, they can
spread even further.
In the aftermath of the invasion of Afghanistan, the U.S. Agency
for International Development supported the Afghan Ministry of
Public Health to deliver basic healthcare to 90 percent of the
population, at a cost of $4.50 a head. The program played a vital
role in improving the country's health; the number of children
dying before the age of five dropped by 100,000 a year. But
accounting standards at the Ministry of Public Health concerned the
United States Special Investigator General for Afghanistan. There
was no evidence of malfeasance, nor argument about the success of
the program. For all that the results were fantastic, receipts were
not in order. The investigator called for the health program to be
suspended because of ""financial management deficiencies"" at the
ministry. This case illustrates a growing problem: an important and
justified focus on corruption as a barrier to development has led
to policy change in aid agencies that is damaging the potential for
aid to deliver results. Donors have treated corruption as an issue
they can measure and improve, and from which they can insulate
their projects at acceptable costs by controlling processes and
monitoring receipts. Results Not Receipts highlights the weak link
between donors' preferred measures of corruption and development
outcomes related to our limited ability to measure the problem. It
discusses the costs of the standard anti-corruption tools of
fiduciary controls and centralized delivery, and it suggests a
different approach to tackling the problem of corruption in
development: focus on outcomes.
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