To Repair the World

Doctor and social activist Paul Farmer shares a collection of charismatic short speeches that aims to inspire the next generation. One of the most passionate and influential voices for global health equity and social justice, Farmer encourages young people to tackle the greatest challenges of our times. Engaging, often humorous, and always inspiring, these speeches bring to light the brilliance and force of Farmer’s vision in a single, accessible volume.

A must-read for graduates, students, and everyone seeking to help bend the arc of history toward justice, To Repair the World:

• challenges readers to counter failures of imagination that keep billions of people without access to health care, safe drinking water, decent schools, and other basic human rights
• champions the power of partnership against global poverty, climate change, and other pressing problems today
• overturns common assumptions about health disparities around the globe by considering the large-scale social forces that determine who gets sick and who has access to health care
• discusses how hope, solidarity, faith, and hardbitten analysis have animated Farmer’s service to the poor in Haiti, Peru, Rwanda, Russia, and elsewhere
• leaves the reader with an uplifting vision: that with creativity, passion, teamwork, and determination, the next generations can make the world a safer and more humane place.

“"[Farmer] offers an anthology of 19 speeches on global health initiatives delivered between 2001 and 2012. . . .[from which ] readers will emerge with a heightened sense of the responsibilities and sacrifices required of future public servants."”

Publishers Weekly
"...[To Repair the World] does not disappoint." Los Angeles Review of Books
""With humor and passion, medical anthropologist Paul Farmer advocates a cure for society and the planet." Nature
"The publication of this book is timely. It would make a perfect gift for a medical or biology graduate, but it would be inspiring to anyone who reads it. His speeches make one feel empowered ― to make a difference, to contribute to health policy, to accompany another who is struggling. In the speeches collected in To Repair the World, Dr. Farmer teaches us crucial lessons that we must all learn from, as scientists, as doctors, and as human beings." Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine

Paul Farmer is cofounder of Partners In Health and Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His most recent book is Reimagining Global Health. Other titles include To Repair the World, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor; Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues; and AIDS and Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame, all by UC Press.

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