Getting Better
Why Global Development Is Succeeding--And How We Can Improve the World Even More
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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.
Erle Stanley Gardner
Erle Stanley Gardner (1889–1970) was an author and lawyer who wrote nearly 150 detective and mystery novels that sold more than one million copies each, making him easily the best-selling American writer of his time. He ranks as one of the most prolific specialists of crime fiction due to his popular alter ego, lawyer-detective Perry Mason. A self-taught lawyer, Gardner was admitted to the California bar in 1911 and began defending poor Chinese and Mexicans as well as other clients. Eventually his writing career, which began with the pulps, pushed his law career aside. As proven in his Edgar Award–winning The Court of Last Resort, Gardner never gave up on the cases of wrongly accused individuals or unjustly convicted defendants.
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