Larissa MacFarquhar's Books

Strangers Drowning

Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help

By: Larissa MacFarquhar

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Strangers Drowning

Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help

By: Larissa MacFarquhar

What does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In Strangers Drowning, Larissa MacFarquhar seeks out people living lives of extreme ethical commitment and tells their deeply intimate stories; their stubborn integrity and their compromises; their bravery and their recklessness; their joys and defeats and wrenching dilemmas. A couple adopts two children in distress. But then they think: If they can change two lives, why not four? Or ten? They adopt twenty. But how do they weigh the needs of unknown children in distress against the needs of the children they already have? Another couple founds a leprosy colony in the wilderness in India, living in huts with no walls, knowing that their two small children may contract leprosy or be eaten by panthers. The children survive. But what if they hadn’t? How would their parents’ risk have been judged? A woman believes that if she spends money on herself, rather than donate it to buy life-saving medicine, then she’s responsible for the deaths that result. She lives on a fraction of her income, but wonders: when is compromise self-indulgence and when is it essential? We honor such generosity and high ideals; but when we call people do-gooders there is skepticism in it, even hostility. Why do moral people make us uneasy? Between her stories, MacFarquhar threads a lively history of the literature, philosophy, social science, and self-help that have contributed to a deep suspicion of do-gooders in Western culture. Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, Strangers Drowning confronts us with fundamental questions about what it means to be human. In a world of strangers drowning in need, how much should we help, and how much can we help? Is it right to care for strangers even at the expense of those we are closest to? Moving and provocative, Strangers Drowning challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.

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Page Count

338

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0143109782

ISBN 13

9780143109785

Strangers Drowning

Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help

By: Larissa MacFarquhar

Write a review Read reviews Take a Quiz Solve Book Puzzle

Strangers Drowning

Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help

By: Larissa MacFarquhar

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Page Count

336

Publisher

Penguin

Published Date

ISBN 10

0698195604

ISBN 13

9780698195608

The UN Security Council and the Maintenance of Peace in a Changing World

By: Congyan Cai,Larissa van den Herik,Tiyanjana Maluwa

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The UN Security Council and the Maintenance of Peace in a Changing World

By: Congyan Cai,Larissa van den Herik,Tiyanjana Maluwa

How can the UN Security Council contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security in times of heightened tensions, global polarisation, and contestation about the principles underlying the international legal and political order? In this Trialogue, experts with diverse geographic, socio-legal, and ideational backgrounds present their perspectives on the Security Council's historic development, its present functions and deficits, and its defining tensions and future trajectories. Three approaches engage with each other: a power-focused approach emphasising the role of China as an emerging actor; an institutionalist perspective exploring how less powerful states, particularly the elected members of the Security Council, exert influence and may strengthen rule-of-law standards; a regionalist perspective investigating how the Security Council as the central actor can cooperate with regional organisations towards maintaining international peace and security. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

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Age

Page Count

323

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1009423436

ISBN 13

9781009423434

Book's by Larissa MacFarquhar

Strangers Drowning

Strangers Drowning

Strangers Drowning

Strangers Drowning

The UN Security Council and the Maintenance of Peace in a Changing World

The UN Security Council and the Maintenance of Peace in a Changing World

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