Since this book was written based on a true story, I wish I could read it once again,an utterly well written book.The book describes in one word the fall of two dictators who were brutally assasinated.Great that's what dictators deserve.

This book delivers a keen insight to the impact of micro-lending as a positive force for change. The story tells how a young woman and four of her friends, with seed money borrowed from an innovative bank in Bangladesh, change their lives by starting their own businesses. It works on many levels including multiculturalism, women's rights, capitalism and entrepreneurship. Based on the real success of the Grameen Bank, this is the kind of story that all western children need to understand in an ever growing global village. This book has recently been listed as one of the Best Children's Books of the Year from Bank Street College and also received a 2003 Skipping Stones Honor Award in the Multicultural and International Books category.

Three microcredit programs (Grameen Bank, BRAC and RD-12) are thoroughly discussed and evaluated as instruments for poverty reduction. With loan recovery rates higher than 90% for landless borrowers, group-based lending (that is, group guarantee to repay individual loans) is the key to substantial household economic improvement - 5% of participating households lift themselves out of poverty every year. Rigorous statistical analysis gives a wealth of information on household-level and village-level results in terms of consumption, household net worth, childrens' schooling and nutrition, production and income. The effects of men's and women's credit are evaluated separately throughout the book, giving some insight on the dynamics of Bangladeshi rural society. Statistical tables and methodological discussions are collected in the Appendix, leaving a main text that can be fully enjoyed even by readers with no statistics background. At the roots of this group-based lending approach is the vision and the determination of a Bangladeshi economics professor, Muhammad Yunus, who, over more than 20 years, has initiated and continuously improved microlending to the poor through the Grameen Bank. The story of Yunus' remarkable life is told in "Banker to the Poor: Microlending and the Battle against World Poverty" by Muhammad Yunus and Alan Jolis, from his childhood in Bangladesh and his student years in the U.S. to his return to Bangladesh and the subsequent Grameen initiative. Both books are fundamental reading for those of us who keep looking for encouraging signs in poor countries' development.

Good work. Came to know more about Bangladesh and the atrocities of Pakistanis. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history of South Asia.

I never knew that there are man-eating tigers until I read this book.On an island off the coast of India where for some reason the tigers eat people. Scientists don't know why. This book is very interesting and I recomend it!

This study traces the emergence and development of a Muslim intelligentsia in Bengal and examines the tension between religious and secular perceptions which they experience in their social and political lives. It explores the various factors which have influenced the ideological position of the intelligentsia, such as ideas derived from their local Indian and trans-Indian linkages as well as contact with a colonial culture. It argues that while religion has always played an important role in the life of the intelligentsia its particular manifestation in political life is a recent phenomenon owing to colonial experiences as well as concerns about legitimacy in the post-colonial phase. It presents an in-depth account of the major discourses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Bengal including controversies regarding language, identity and nationalism. The distinctiveness of the study lies in its subject matter and the inter-disciplinary approach to it. The study has attempted to relate the ideological orientations of the intelligentsia to their social bases. It finds that the dominant ideology is determined to a large extent by the nature of the ruling elite, its social base as well as its educational and intellectual orientations.

This is a magnificiently photographed book, with superb research and informative text. the photographs are truly world-class, and this book deserves more attention. It documents a vanishing culture of traditional boats, colorful, hand-built, and evolved over the centuries to serve the purposes of trade and transportation. It is beautifully produced as well, with a high standard of printing for the photographs. If you are fan of sailboats, this book is for you. It will broaden your horizons and provide hours of enjoyable reading and picture viewing.

Katy Gardner has done a wonderful job in packaging her research as a secular anthropologist into a format that is both entertaining to read and intensely informative. While living with a Muslim family in Bangladesh she gained valuable insights that should be read by any outsider who is serious about understanding Bangladeshi village culture.

the subject is a tempting one to begin with: tigers who are seldom seen, but who seem to kill people whenever they like. Montgomery's powerful insight into this strange region of the world is that these killer tigers, revered by some locals as supernatural, are actually protecting the entire ecosystem from destruction. They are difficult to study scientifically, and take on an incredible air of mystery that is as compelling as the lush environment and the strange effectiveness of some of the local cult religions. A superb study.