Half the Sky
by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
- Percentage of approved critics who have given this book a positive review.
Critic Rating
83%
Critic Reviews: 20
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- User rating from iDreamBooks & iTunes
Reader Rating
92%
Reader Ratings: 439
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Synopsis
From two of our most fiercely moral voices, a passionate call to arms against our era’s most pervasive human rights violation: the oppression of women and girls in the developing world. With Pulitzer Prize winners Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn as our guides, we undertake an odyssey through Africa and Asia to meet the extraordinary women struggling there, among them a Cambodian teenager sold into sex slavery and an Ethiopian woman who suffered... more
About Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Critic Reviews for Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide
Add Critic Review- All Critics: 20
- Positive: 17
- Negative: 3
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The New York Times | 17 Sep 2009
In the opening pages of this gripping call to conscience, the husband-and-wife team come out swinging . . . poignant portraits of survivors humanize the issues, divulging facts that moral outrage might otherwise eclipse.
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The New York Times | 7 Sep 2009
...this wonderful book combines a denunciation of horrible abuses with clear-eyed hope and some compelling practical strategies.
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Kirkus Reviews | 15 Jun 2009
Intelligent, revealing and important.
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HARVARD MAGAZINE | 1 Sep 2009
Some of the actions they suggest to casual readers . . . sometimes feel more like an attempt at moral improvement of Westerners than effective ways to bring about change elsewhere.
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Pajiba | 1 Sep 2009
The book will inspire you to do something, anything . . . I loved this book, and I hate pretty much everything. Really.
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The Washington Post | 11 Sep 2009
"Half the Sky" is either one of the most important books . . . or it is reportage about a will-o'-the-wisp movement destined to end up in the footnotes of history . . . I'm too stunned by the density of information and the high quality of the prose here to know for sure which it is.
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The Guardian | 30 Jul 2010
The only really enviable privilege that the privileged have is the chance to do good. Kristof and WuDunn make it sound easy. It's practically impossible, but Half the Sky does make you want to try.
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Slate | 14 Sep 2009
Kristof and WuDunn's book is empowering for the reader.
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Huffington Post | 14 Sep 2009
The authors titled their book after an old Chinese proverb that says "Women hold up half the sky." It's time that people around the world recognize the full implication of that wise proverb.
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Huffington Post | 9 Nov 2009
What Kristof and WuDunn have accomplished with "Half the Sky" is to bring this issue to a broader and committed audience, an audience that - once having read the book - must and will demand action.
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Boston.com | 22 Oct 2009
“Half the Sky’’ is a grab-the-reader-by-the-lapels wake-up call. The graphic descriptions of abuse routinely heaped upon women and girls merely because of their sex ought to enrage everyone.
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The New York Times | 7 Sep 2009
Their descriptions of female resourcefulness alone make the case that neglecting women’s agency is a huge political and economic error . . . the book is both stirring and sensible.
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National Catholic Reporter | 1 Oct 2012
At once compelling, overwhelming, hopeful and life-changing.
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The New York Review of Books | 19 Sep 2009
Kristof and WuDunn . . . recogniz[e] that if their call to action is to succeed off the page, they need to show, not tell, on it. And show they do: every larger point, about human trafficking laws, for example, or global maternal health, is introduced by an explicit, moving, illustrative anecdote, so that the larger narrative is suffused with stories that keep the issues focused and comprehensible. This alone would have made Half the Sky a valuable and instructive book.
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The Guardian | 18 Aug 2010
That is what makes their book – named after the Chinese saying that women hold up half the sky – so unusual, not just in its searing and heart-rending contents but in its steely determination and sense of purpose.
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Journey With Jesus | 1 Sep 2009
There's so much to love about this book. It's broad and deep in its geographical scope.
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Thinking Beyond Borders | 1 Sep 2009
Half the Sky’s strongest components are the sections following each chapter highlighting unique efforts around the globe to address each challenge to women’s freedom and quality of life listed in the book.
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Verge Magazine | 1 Sep 2009
Half the Sky will stay with you long after the last page has been turned.
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HubPages | 1 Sep 2009
A heart-wrenching analysis of problems along with well-researched solutions.
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The L Magazine | 8 Oct 2012
The authors have no critique of globalism to offer, nor do they appear to grasp how western economic power keeps the developing world too poor to develop.
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