Path Appears (Kristof, WuDunn)

A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity
Nicholas Kristof, Sheryl WuDunn, 2014
Knopf Doubleday
400 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780345805102


Summary
An essential, galvanizing narrative about making a difference here and abroad—a road map to becoming the most effective global citizens we can be.

In their number one New York Times bestseller Half the Sky, husband-and-wife team Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn brought to light struggles faced by women and girls around the globe, and showcased individuals and institu­tions working to address oppression and expand opportunity.

A Path Appears is even more ambi­tious in scale: nothing less than a sweeping tap­estry of people who are making the world a better place and a guide to the ways that we can do the same—whether with a donation of $5 or $5 mil­lion, with our time, by capitalizing on our skills as individuals, or by using the resources of our businesses.

With scrupulous research and on-the-ground reporting, the authors assay the art and science of giving, identify successful local and global initia­tives, and share astonishing stories from the front lines of social progress. We see the compelling, in­spiring truth of how real people have changed the world, upending the idea that one person can’t make a difference.

We meet people like...

• Dr. Gary Slutkin, who devel­oped his landmark Cure Violence program to combat inner-city conflicts in the United States by applying principles of epidemiology
• Lester Strong, who left a career as a high-powered television anchor to run an organization bringing in older Americans to tu­tor students in public schools across the country
• Esther Duflo, an MIT development economist, whose pioneering studies of aid effectiveness have revealed new truths about, among other things, the power of hope
• Jessica Posner and Kennedy Odede, who are transforming Kenya’s most notorious slum by ex­panding educational opportunities for girls.

A Path Appears offers practical, results-driven advice on how best each of us can give and reveals the lasting benefits we gain in return. Kristof and WuDunn know better than most how many urgent challenges communities around the world face to­day. Here they offer a timely beacon of hope for our collective future. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bios
Nicholas Kristof
• Birth—April 27, 1959
• Raised—Yamhill, Oregon, USA
• Education—B.A., Harvard; J.D., Oxford University
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in suburban New York City


Nicholas Donabet Kristof is an American journalist, author, op-ed columnist, and a winner of two Pulitzer Prizes. He has written an op-ed column for the New York Times since 2001.

Life and career
Kristof was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up on a sheep and cherry farm in Yamhill, Oregon. He is the son of Jane Kristof (nee McWilliams) and Ladis "Kris" Kristof (born Wladyslaw Krzysztofowicz), both long-time professors at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon.

Nicholas Kristof graduated from Yamhill Carlton High School, where he was student body president and school newspaper editor, and later became a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Harvard College. At Harvard, he studied government and worked on The Harvard Crimson newspaper; "Alums recall Kristof as one of the brightest undergraduates on campus," according to a profile in the Crimson.

After Harvard, he studied law at Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar. He earned his law degree with first-class honors and won an academic prize. Afterward, he studied Arabic in Egypt for the 1983–84 academic year. He has a number of honorary degrees.

New York Times
Kristof joined the New York Times in 1984, initially covering economics and later serving as a Times correspondent in Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, and Tokyo. He also covered presidential politics and is the author of the chapter on President George W. Bush in the reference book The Presidents. He rose to be the associate managing editor, responsible for Sunday editions.

In 2001 Kristof became a Times op-ed writer. His twice-weekly columns often focus on global health, poverty, and gender issues in the developing world. In particular, since 2004 he has written dozens of columns about Darfur and visited the area 11 times.

According to his New York Times bio, Kristoff has traveled to more than 150 countries—and not without incident. During his travels, he contracted malaria, was threatened by mobs, and survived an airplane crash. Jeffrey Toobin of CNN and The New Yorker, a Harvard classmate, once said...

I’m not surprised to see him emerge as the moral conscience of our generation of journalists. I am surprised to see him as the Indiana Jones of our generation of journalists.

Kristoff also pioneered the use of multimedia for the Times: he was both the first blogger on the paper's website and the first to make a video for the website. He also tweets, has Facebook and Google Plus pages and a YouTube channel. According to Twitter lists, he has more followers (almost 1.5 million) than any other print journalist in the world.

Kristof resides outside New York City with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn, and their three children. He enjoys running, backpacking, and having his Chinese and Japanese corrected by his children.

Impact
Because of his emphasis on human rights abuses and social injustices—namely, human trafficking and the Darfur conflict—the Washington Post said that Kristoff has "shaped the field of opinion journalism."

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has called Kristof an "honorary African" for shining a spotlight on neglected conflicts.

Bill Clinton said of Kristof in 2009:

There is no one in journalism, anywhere in the United States at least, who has done anything like the work he has done to figure out how poor people are actually living around the world, and what their potential is.... So every American citizen who cares about this should be profoundly grateful that someone in our press establishment cares enough about this to haul himself all around the world to figure out what's going on....I am personally in his debt, as are we all.

In 2013 Joyce Barnathan, president of the International Center for Journalists, called Kristof "the conscience of international journalism."

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation names Kristof as one of its inspirations. A January 1997 page-one article by Kristof, about child mortality in the developing world, helped forcus the couple's philanthropy on global health. A framed copy of that article hangs in the gallery of the Gates Foundation.

Books
Kristof has co-authored four books with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn:

• China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power (1994) and Thunder from the East: Portrait of a Rising Asia (2000). The two books examine the cultural, social, and political situation of East Asia largely through interviews and personal experiences.
• Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (2009), a best-seller, the book was the basis of an award-winning PBS documentary, which featured WuDunn. The book was also made into a Facebook game with more than 1.1 million players.
• A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity (2014) explores how altruism affects all of us and presents various ways that we can make a difference. It, too, became a widely watched PBS documentary in 2015, and featured Jennifer Garner, Eva Longoria, Alfre Woodard, Blake Lively, in early 2015.

Half the Sky
Perhaps the best known of Kristof and WuDunn's books is their 2009 Half the Sky, which hit the top of the bestseller charts. The idea for the book was sparked by the Tiananmen Square protests. After reporting on the 500 deaths from that event, the authors learned that some 39,000 girls died every year—far more than had died at Tiananmen—from being denied access to the same food and medical treatment offered to boys. Yet there was no mention or coverage of this stastic anywhere.

Stunned, Kristof and WuDunn decided to dig deeper into overall issues of gender, everywhere—sex trafficking, modern slavery, domestic violence, and rape as both weapon of war and form of "legal justice." The resulting book, Half the Sky, shines in a light onto the dark recesses of female oppression and abuse around the world. The book has since been called a classic, a call to arms, and even comparable in significance to Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Carolyn Seen of the Washington Post called it one of the most important books she had ever reviewed, as did Counter Punch's Charles Larson.

Awards and recognition
1989 - George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting (on human rights and environmental issues).
1990 - Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting (with Sheryl WuDunn)
2006 - Media Web's Journalist of the Year
2007 - Fred Cuny Award for Prevention of Deaadly Conflict
2007 - U.S. News & World Report: one of "America's Best Leaders."
2008 - Anne Frank Award
2009 - Dayton Literary Peace Prize Lifetime Award (with WuDunn)
2009 - World of Children Lifetime Achievement Award (with WuDunn)
2011 - Harvard Kennedy School / Washington Post: one of seven "Top American Leaders."
2013 - Advancing Global Health Award from Seattle Biomed
2013 - Goldsmith Award for Career Excellence in Journalism by Harvard University
2013 - International Freedom Conductor by the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. (The prevous "Conductor" was the Dalai Lama.)
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 1/17/2016.)

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Book Reviews
Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn show you, through many amazing vignettes matched with serious evidence, that you can make a difference….Read this book. Seize one of the many opportunities it lists, and change lives for the better, including your own.
Paul Collier - New York Times Book Review


[An] exhaustive though not exhausting profile of giving, with surprising guidance—indeed, coaching—on how to be an effective giver…. Upon finishing the book, readers are likely to…find themselves willing to do something in the world, unconcerned by questions of scale, but instead, to simply become more engaged, and in that, alive.
Boston Globe


[O]pens an important conversation for anyone interested in how to contribute to catalyzing positive change…[it] sheds light on the exploitation and inequity that exist in our own backyard, while also spotlighting the individuals overcoming it.
Christian Science Monitor


Readers will be inspired by the stories [Kristof and WuDunn] tell…. There are so many problems in the world, and so many organizations wanting charitable donations, that we can sometimes feel overwhelmed. [The authors] help us weed through those issues and find that path so we can make a difference.
National Geographic.com


Nobody clarifies the social challenges of our time, or the moral imperative to help meet them, better than Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. Their latest book, A Path Appears, offers an inspiring roundup of the many simple and effective ways in which we can lend our hearts and talents to grow hope and opportunity both at home and around the globe—and an important reminder that just because we can’t do everything doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something.
Former President Bill Clinton, founder of the Clinton Foundation
 

Helping suffering people around the world to transform their own lives is a rewarding challenge we all share as citizens of a global community. A Path Appears is a helpful and inspiring guide for anyone who wonders what difference a single person can make in building a more hopeful world.”
Former President Jimmy Carter, founder of the not-for-profit Carter Center


Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn have done us all a great service by shining a light on the problems faced by the poor. These stories of real people struggling for survival and opportunity serve as a powerful reminder that poverty is complex and painful, but the call to action doesn’t need to be. With insight, compassion and optimism, Kristof and WuDunn show us that we can all play a role in making the world a better place. A Path Appears is a compelling read that can’t help but to educate and energize.”
Bill and Melinda Gates, co-chairs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation


Broadly inclusive and multifaceted account of possible solutions to today’s "overwhelming and unrelenting" social problems. Heartening anecdotal sketches of both givers and receivers in the "charity industry" are engaging and informative, and Kristof and WuDunn hope to provoke serious thought about the role of charity in today’s world.
Publishers Weekly


[K]nown for their crusading work on human rights...[the authors] examine individuals who are making a difference, aiming not simply to get us to contribute time, skills, and/or money to their efforts but to parse which approaches and initiatives really work. The forthcoming four-part PBS documentary amplifies the message.
Library Journal


A primer on "finding innovative and effective ways to give back."... [T]he husband-and-wife team addresses how ordinary people can participate in "a revolution in tackling social problems, employing new savvy, discipline and experience to chip away at poverty and injustice."... The authors deliver a profound message that packs a wallop.
Kirkus Reviews

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