Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (edit title)

• Rated 3 stars

“Nine steps to save the world. Will anyone listen?”

• Rated 5 stars

“Very Interesting and captivating. It is a book for Econ lovers.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Sachs illustrates, powerfully, that there are concrete ways in which our leaders can act together to tackle world issues. The strategies he proposes are pragmatic in their scale and have been tested in many different places around the world.

The difficulty in reading the book is in believing that our leaders will set aside self (and narrow national) interest to to avert future crises.”

• Rated 0 stars

“Ploughing through it slowly. Challenging and tough to read, but really think I should carry on.”

• Rated 0 stars

“bought it and it's in the stack for when work stops taxing my brain and I can handle reading non-fluffy stuff again”

• Rated 5 stars

“If we pick one book as our guide to living on this planet, it should be Common Wealth. Jeffrey Sachs lays out the solutions to all of the world's major problems. He lays out the urgency of acting now and for the long term. He dispels the myths surrounding the doubters and the misguided. In the End of Poverty, Jeffrey Sachs makes it clear why we should care and what we can do to eliminate extreme poverty. He goes beyond that in this book to talk about the major issues of our time: environmental sustainability, population stability, and every person's right to succeed. If we can afford the pointless war in Iraq, we can afford to sustain this planet and all its people.”

• Rated 4 stars

“Nicole R said: 4 stars

First of all, I am NOT an economist...I am far from it. I have trouble balancing my own checkbook let alone deciding how billions of people interact in the world economy. Despite my lack of background knowledge, Common Wealth was a truly engaging, informative, and (dare I say) entertaining read!

I found particularly interesting the chapters on global solutions to climate change and the entire section (two chapters) on demographics and the numbers behind the population increase. In the population section he presented concepts I hadn't really thought of before about "population momentum" - of how, even if fertility rates around the world drop to single replacement overnight, the population would continue to grow to do the population structure (a disproportionate number of young people who have yet to have children).

I also completely agree with his view that it is going to take global cooperation and commitment to solve the myriad problems facing the world economy. It is time to stop pointing fingers and dodging blame but instead, step up to the plate and be a world leader....something I have great hopes for in terms of the new administration! ”

• Rated 4 stars

“First of all, I am NOT an economist...I am far from it. I have trouble balancing my own checkbook let alone deciding how billions of people interact in the world economy. Despite my lack of background knowledge, Common Wealth was a truely engaging, informative, and (dare I say) entertaining read!

I found particularly interesting the chapters on global solutions to climate change and the entire section (two chapters) on demographics and the numbers behind the population increase. In the population section he presented concepts I hadn't really thought of before about "population momentum" - of how, even if fertility rates around the world drop to single replacement overnight, the population would continue to grow to do the populatiion structure (a disproportionate number of young people who have yet to have children.

I also completely agree with his view that it is going to take global cooperation and committment to solve the myriad problems facing the world economy.”

• Rated 0 stars

“This book talks about what is needed to end poverty, save the planet and ourselves, but from a Global or "top down" perspective. This is not a very practical perspective because it will be VERY difficult to get countries to agree on policies. Too much special interest at stake. Although he has great stats, charts and reasoning. A better read is Deep Economy by Bill McKibben which promotes change from the bottom up or individual perspective. (Plus it is a paper back and more fun to read!)”

• Rated 0 stars

“A nice sum up of the challenges facing the world today. Economic Development for All, Enviromental Sustainabilty and the Demographic challenge. A very good starting point to get a overview of the subjects. As Sach says the main problem is not finding the solutions to these problem, but for people, governments and organisations to start acting.”