Ranging from social science to biology, global health is a vast and complex field. If you have a passion for global health and want to learn in depth about global health issues, reading is a must. PHP has developed the following reading list as a resource for anyone interested in learning more about many important issues in today’s world. We do not necessarily agree with everything contained within the books on this list, but each of them makes an important contribution to global health. Indeed, selecting literature from such a diverse collection will ensure a holistic perspective on the field.
Development and Poverty
• Guns, Germs, and Steel – Jared Diamond
• The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It – Paul Collier
• The End of Poverty – Jeffrey Sachs
• Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet – Jeffrey Sachs
• Development as Freedom – Amartya Sen
• Africa Unchained: The Blueprint for Africa’s Future – George Ayittey
• The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid – C.K. Prahalad
• Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way to Fight Poverty – Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo
• More Than Good Intentions: How a New Economics is Helping to Solve Global Poverty – Dean Karlan and Jacob Appel
Foreign Aid and Political Economy
• The Dragon’s Gift: The Real Story of China in Africa – Deborah Brautigam
• Intervention and Transnationalism in Africa: Global-Local Networks of Power – Thomas Callaghy, Ronald Kassimir, and Robert Latham (Carolyn Nordstrom)
• The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good – William Easterly
• Choosing the Lesser Evil: Understanding Decision Making in Humanitarian Aid NGOs – Liesbet Heyse
• Aid to Africa: So Much to Do, So Little Done – Carol Lancaster
• Foreign Aid: Diplomacy, Development, Domestic Politics – Carol Lancaster
• Dead Aid: Why Aid Is Not Working and How There Is a Better Way for Africa – Dambisa Moyo
• Globalization and Its Discontents – Joseph Stiglitz
Human Rights, Ethics, and Morality
• East Asian Challenge for Human Rights – Joanne R. Bauer and Daniel A. Bell
• Perspectives on Health and Human Rights – Sofia Gruskin
• What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life Amidst Uncertainty and Danger – Arthur Kleinman
• Health and Human Rights – Jonathan Mann, Sofia Gruskin, Michael Grodin, and George Annas
• World Poverty and Human Rights – Thomas Pogge
• The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty – Peter Singer
• Medical Apartheid – Harriet Washington
• Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela – Nelson Mandela
Social Medicine
• Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor – Paul Farmer
• Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues – Paul Farmer
• Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, the Man Who Could Cure the World – Tracy Kidder
• A Doctor in Little Lhasa: One Year in Dharamasala with the Tibetans in Exile – Timothy Holtz
• The Making of a Tropical Disease: A Short History of Malaria – Randall M. Packard
HIV/AIDS
• The Invisible Cure: Why We Are Losing the Fight Against AIDS in Africa – Helen Epstein
• HIV and AIDS in Africa: Beyond Epidemiology – Ezekiel Kalipeni, Susan Craddock, Joseph R. Oppong, and Jayati Ghosh
• Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa – Stephen Lewis
• A Generation at Risk: The Global Impact of HIV/AIDS on Orphans and Vulnerable Children – John G. Williamson, Geoff Foster, and Carol Levine
Humanitarian Disasters
• Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda – Romeo Dallaire and Samantha Power
• We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed with Our Families – Philip Gourevitch
• Shadows of War: Violence, Power, and International Profiteering in the Twenty-First Century – Carolyn Nordstrom
• An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action for the Twenty-First Century – James Orbinski
• A Problem From Hell: America and the Age of Genocide – Samantha Power
• Africa’s World War: Congo, the Rwandan Genocide, and the Making of a Continental Catastrophe – Gerard Prunier
• Condemned to Repeat?: The Paradox of Humanitarian Action – Fiona Terry
Environmental Health and Justice
• The Food Wars – Walden Bello
• Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa – Stephen Devereux and Simon Maxwell
• Collapse – Jared Diamond
• The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters – Rose George
• People-First Economics: Making a Clean Start for Jobs, Justice, and Climate – Naomi Klein and Walden Bello
• Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource – Marq de Villiers
• Violent Environments – Nancy Lee Peluso and Michael Watts
Colonialism
• Discourse on Colonialism – Aimé Césaire
• King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa – Adam Hochschild
• How Europe Underdeveloped Africa – Walter Rodney
World Economic Order
• Movement of Movements: Is Another World Really Possible? – Tom Mertes and Walden Bello
Financial Services
• The Economics of Microfinance – Beatriz Armendariz and Jonathan Morduch
• Banker to the Poor – Muhamed Yunus
• Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism – Muhammad Yunus
Urban Poverty
• Planet of Slums – Mike Davis
• There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in The Other America – Alex Kotlowitz
• Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets – Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh
Public Health
• The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance – Laurie Garrett
• Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health – Laurie Garrett
Leadership and Management
• How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas – David Bornstein
• Global Health Leadership and Management – William H. Foege, Nils M.P. Daulaire, Robert E. Black, and Clarence E. Pearson
• Paradigm Found: Leading and Managing for Positive Change – Anne Firth Murray
• How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas – David Bornstein
Practical On-the-Ground Books
• Where Women Have No Doctor: A Health Guide for Women – A. August Burns et al.
• Oxford Handbook of Tropical Medicine – Michael Eddleston et al.
• Where There is No Doctor: A Village Health Care Handbook – Jane Maxwell et al.
Education
• Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Freire
• Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace… One School at a Time – Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Uganda
• The Last King of Scotland – Giles Foden
• Abyssinian Chronicles – Moses Isegawa
• Uganda: Tarnished Pearl of Africa – Thomas Ofcansky
• Uganda (Oxfam Country Profiles Series) – Ian Leggett
• Uganda Since Independence: A Story of Unfulfilled Hopes – Phares Mutibwa
• Culture and Customs of Uganda – Kefa M. Otiso
• Cultivating Success in Uganda: Kigezi Farmers and Colonial Policies – Grace Carswell
• Living with Bad Surroundings: War, History, and Everyday Moments in Northern Uganda – Sverker Finnstrom
• Uganda: Post-Conflict Reconstruction – Alcira Kreimer, Paul Collier, Colin S. Scott, Margaret Arnold
• The Correct Line? Uganda Under Museveni – Olive Kobusingye
• The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget: Murder and Memory in Uganda – Andrew Rices