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Title details for Half the Sky by Nicholas D. Kristof - Available

Half the Sky

Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide

by Nicholas D. Kristof
Cassandra Campbell
Audiobook
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#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation—the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. From the bestselling authors of Tightrope, two of our most fiercely moral voices

With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered devastating injuries in childbirth. Drawing on the breadth of their combined reporting experience, Kristof and WuDunn depict our world with anger, sadness, clarity, and, ultimately, hope.
They show how a little help can transform the lives of women and girls abroad. That Cambodian girl eventually escaped from her brothel and, with assistance from an aid group, built a thriving retail business that supports her family. The Ethiopian woman had her injuries repaired and in time became a surgeon. A Zimbabwean mother of five, counseled to return to school, earned her doctorate and became an expert on AIDS.
Through these stories, Kristof and WuDunn help us see that the key to economic progress lies in unleashing women’s potential. They make clear how so many people have helped to do just that, and how we can each do our part. Throughout much of the world, the greatest unexploited economic resource is the female half of the population. Countries such as China have prospered precisely because they emancipated women and brought them into the formal economy. Unleashing that process globally is not only the right thing to do; it’s also the best strategy for fighting poverty.
Deeply felt, pragmatic, and inspirational, Half the Sky is essential reading for every global citizen.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    July 9, 2019

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593163030
      • File size: 304298 KB
      • Duration: 10:33:57

  • Languages

    • English

  • Levels

    • Lexile® Measure: 1170
    • Text Difficulty: 8-9

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Just as moral leaders ended African slavery and the Holocaust, the authors say, a similar initiative is necessary to stop the oppression of third-world women in three disturbing areas: sex trafficking and forced prostitution, cultural violence against women, and maternal mortality. They argue that governments prefer bombing perceived enemies to dealing with these entrenched practices, despite evidence that educational investment, small business loans, and courageous lawmaking can all help women help themselves--and their children and communities. Cassandra Campbell's somber reading couldn't be more attuned to the authors' mission as she interprets writing that is as intense as it gets. Her impressive depth carries listeners through the book's gruesome lows and inspiring highs, and ultimately to a place where they cannot dismiss this human rights tragedy. T.W. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from August 17, 2009
      New York Times
      columnist Kristof and his wife, WuDunn, a former Times
      reporter, make a brilliantly argued case for investing in the health and autonomy of women worldwide. “More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century,” they write, detailing the rampant “gendercide” in the developing world, particularly in India and Pakistan. Far from merely making moral appeals, the authors posit that it is impossible for countries to climb out of poverty if only a fraction of women (9% in Pakistan, for example) participate in the labor force. China's meteoric rise was due to women's economic empowerment: 80% of the factory workers in the Guangdong province are female; six of the 10 richest self-made women in the world are Chinese. The authors reveal local women to be the most effective change agents: “The best role for Americans... isn't holding the microphone at the front of the rally but writing the checks,” an assertion they contradict in their unnecessary profiles of American volunteers finding “compensations for the lack of shopping malls and Netflix movies” in making a difference abroad.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Levels

  • Lexile® Measure:1170
  • Text Difficulty:8-9

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