quippe | Entries tagged with paul collier

The Blurb On The Back:

Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of Britain and other Western societies: thriving cities versus the provinces, the highly skilled elite versus the less-educated, wealthy versus developing countries. So far these rifts have been answered only by the stale politics of left vs right. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now.

In this passionate and polemical book, Paul Collier outlines original and ethical ways of healing these rifts with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervour of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s greatest social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at Oxford University. This centrist polemic is smug, politically naive and offers weirdly paternalistic “solutions” that fail to tackle the structural issues responsible for the rifts in society that he professes to want to resolve. As a lawyer, I also found his constant digs at lawyers to be dull and uninformed and I was really uncomfortable with the revelations about his family.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.

The Blurb On The Back:

Europe is facing its greatest refugee crisis since the Second World War, yet the institutions responding to it remain virtually unchanged from those created in the post-war era. As neighbouring countries continue to bear the brunt of the Syrian catastrophe, European governments have enacted a series of ill-considered and damaging gestures. With a deepening crisis and a xenophobic backlash around the world, it is time for a new vision of refuge.

Going beyond the scenes of desperation that have become all too familiar in the past few years renowned development experts Alexander Betters and Paul Collier break new ground by showing how international policymakers can deliver humane, sustainable results that are better for refugees and host countries. Drawing upon years of research in the field and original solutions that have already been successfully trialled, they outline a compelling vision that can empower refugees to help themselves, contribute to their host countries and even rebuild their countries of origin.

Refuge reveals how, despite the media focus on the minority of refugees trying to making it to Europe’s shores, 90 per cent of the world’s refugees live in developing countries, mostly in camps or in urban poverty. In light of this, their eye-opening book situates Europe’s refugee crisis in a global framework, offering a concrete diagnosis for a system that has, for too long, been institutionally broken.

An urgent and essential work, Refuge shows how we can act for both moral and practical purposes in order to deal with the defining challenge of our time.

( The Review (Cut For Spoilers): )

The Verdict:

In this moving, compassionate and intelligent book Alexander Betts and Paul Collier analyse the decisions and structural problems that led to the flood of Syrian and other refugees trying to reach Europe from 2011 and propose an alternative innovative and yet pragmatic approach, putting it through the prism of the original crisis to highlight how things may have been different in a must-read for anyone interested in the subject.

Thanks to the Amazon Vine Programme for the review copy of this book.