Tesco
Banker to the Poor
Book

Banker to the Poor

Micro-Lending and the Battle Against World Poverty

Muhammad Yunus
Public Affairs, 2003
First Edition: 1999

Read or listen offline

  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

In 1974, while Muhammad Yunus was teaching economics in Bangladesh, the country was ravaged by famine. Increasingly uncomfortable teaching abstract theories while starving people shuffled by outside his classroom, Yunus realized his economic education was incomplete. To complete it, he went to local villages to "learn from the poor" about what they actually needed rather than what a textbook said they should have. The answer was credit, so Yunus founded a bank to provide it - Grameen Bank. The name means the "bank of the village." Today, Yunus is a Nobel Peace Price winner and Grameen Bank has extended credit to more than 2.6 million people. This down-to-earth, unsentimental autobiography recounts what inspired him, the obstacles he overcame and the ultimate success of this project, his life's work. getAbstract highly recommends it to anyone who wants to know how one person's efforts can have a huge impact.

Take-Aways

  • As a child, Muhammad Yunus was a good student and talented artist. He traveled to other countries as a Boy Scout.
  • After college, he taught economics at a university in Bangladesh and opened a successful business with his father.
  • Studying for a Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University, he became intrigued with the human side of economics.

About the Author

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus is the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank. He chaired economics at Bangladesh's Chittagong University.

Comment on this summary or Diskussion beginnen