This thoughtful deep dive into the world of microfinance is both educative and heartbreaking.
A keen examination of the rise and fall in popularity of the microfinance loan system.
The concept of microfinance—which provides loan and banking services to poor populations that would normally be unable to access such services—was the brainchild of Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi economist who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. However, as Kardas-Nelson, a journalist focused on international development and inequality, shows, the idea isn’t as win-win as it seems on the surface. While some recipients have benefited, others have ended up drowning in debt or jailed for failure to repay. In 2019 in Homa Bay, Kenya, two dozen people died by suicide. “Every single one,” writes the author, “had something in common: they had recently defaulted on their microcredit loans.” In her penetrating investigation, Kardas-Nelson follows a handful of loan recipients in West Africa, in addition to the mostly well-meaning executives, policymakers, and investors chasing the dream of changing a country’s destiny by doling out small loans to “the poorest of the poor.” The heartstring-tugging stories of Western advertising firms and banks jumping into the fray looking to make some cash are striking, but the real meat of the book is the absorbing tales of the yogurt seller, jewelry maker, and women living in grinding, exhausting poverty. Most of them, the author argues, would have been better off with a living-wage job, rather than trying to maintain precarious self-employment. Ultimately, the pros and cons of microfinance require further exploration and more long-term data, but Kardas-Nelson offers an evenhanded, instructive account of where things stand today. “Women are terrified of the loans and their consequences,” she notes near the end of the book. “And they are also terrified of life without them.”
This thoughtful deep dive into the world of microfinance is both educative and heartbreaking.Pub Date: June 11, 2024
ISBN: 9781250817228
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2024
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.
The comedian argues that the arts of moderation and common sense must be reinvigorated.
Some people are born snarky, some become snarky, and some have snarkiness thrust upon them. Judging from this book, Maher—host of HBO’s Real Time program and author of The New New Rules and When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden—is all three. As a comedian, he has a great deal of leeway to make fun of people in politics, and he often delivers hilarious swipes with a deadpan face. The author describes himself as a traditional liberal, with a disdain for Republicans (especially the MAGA variety) and a belief in free speech and personal freedom. He claims that he has stayed much the same for more than 20 years, while the left, he argues, has marched toward intolerance. He sees an addiction to extremism on both sides of the aisle, which fosters the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be an enemy to be destroyed. However, Maher has always displayed his own streaks of extremism, and his scorched-earth takedowns eventually become problematic. The author has something nasty to say about everyone, it seems, and the sarcastic tone starts after more than 300 pages. As has been the case throughout his career, Maher is best taken in small doses. The book is worth reading for the author’s often spot-on skewering of inept politicians and celebrities, but it might be advisable to occasionally dip into it rather than read the whole thing in one sitting. Some parts of the text are hilarious, but others are merely insulting. Maher is undeniably talented, but some restraint would have produced a better book.
Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781668051351
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change.
Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.
The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.
A fierce, penetrating, and empowering call for change. (writing prompt) (Nonfiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5
Page Count: 64
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2020
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