Book cover of Development as Freedom

Book description

In Development as Freedom Amartya Sen quotes the eighteenth century poet William Cowper on freedom:

Freedom has a thousand charms to show,

That slaves howe'er contented, never know.

Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence, millions of people living in rich and poor countries are…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Development as Freedom as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The aims of economic development are often said to be higher incomes, industrialization, efficient investment, and poverty alleviation.

Amartya Sen argues for a broader goal: increasing the capability of all human beings to achieve those things that they most value.

Such an agenda implies more ambitious goals for empowering people, especially in poor countries, to begin a process of expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy: education, health care, longevity, and the ability to influence political decisions.

Sen, a Nobel laureate in economics, draws on a lifetime of thought about human predicaments, famines, and poverty, how to define one’s capabilities,…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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