{"product_id":"strangers-drowning-strangers-drowning-impossible-idealism-drastic-choices-and-the-urge-to-help-paperback","title":"Strangers Drowning: Strangers Drowning: Impossible Idealism, Drastic Choices, and the Urge to Help - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eLarissa Macfarquhar\u003c\/b\u003e (Author)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat does it mean to devote yourself wholly to helping others? In \u003ci\u003eStrangers Drowning\u003c\/i\u003e, 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. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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? \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e 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. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Through its sympathetic and beautifully vivid storytelling, \u003ci\u003eStrangers Drowning\u003c\/i\u003e 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, \u003ci\u003eStrangers Drowning\u003c\/i\u003e challenges us to think about what we value most, and why.\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eLARISSA MACFARQUHAR has been a staff writer at \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e since 1998. Her subjects have included John Ashbery, Barack Obama, and Noam Chomsky, among many others. Previously she was a senior editor at \u003ci\u003eLingua Franca\u003c\/i\u003e and an advisory editor at \u003ci\u003eThe Paris Review\u003c\/i\u003e. MacFarquhar lives in New York.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 336\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 x 8.4 x 5.4 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e September 27, 2016\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51753851027744,"sku":"9780143109785","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0974\/9764\/5344\/files\/bc020bca5161d077e00141976671f25b.webp?v=1780028389","url":"https:\/\/ebocreations.com\/products\/strangers-drowning-strangers-drowning-impossible-idealism-drastic-choices-and-the-urge-to-help-paperback","provider":"The E-Book Oasis LLC","version":"1.0","type":"link"}