Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Journalist Zapata debuts with an illuminating survey of how America's most pressing social issues have been handled by other countries. Drawing on more than a decade spent reporting around the world, Zapata explains how seemingly impossible goals for Americans--including affordable housing and childcare, quality education, and sustainable postretirement incomes for the elderly--have been tackled successfully elsewhere. Examples include the U.K.'s free national healthcare service, Portugal's adoption of an innovative new approach to addiction that deals with users solely via the public health system rather than the criminal justice one, and Singapore's nearly universal offering of public housing to its citizens (though Zapata explains that such policies do not help the city's "invisible" populations of migrants). Zapata focuses on the technical details of these systems, giving precise explanations of how they work in practice, as a primer for how they could work in America. Her reporting is colorful and impressive in its scope--later chapters delve into such lesser-known examples as Costa Rica's successful fight to preserve biodiversity from the coffee industry by inventing sustainable new farming practices. The result is a fascinating and inspiring glimpse of how rational governance operates. (Feb.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
This distinctive book looks to other countries for solutions to social and environmental problems in the United States. Award-winning journalist Zapata traveled to every continent except Antarctica to examine how other national government policies changed the lives of their citizens for the better. Her book offers examples of successful policies she encountered that could be adapted in the U.S. Chapters cover the health care system in the United Kingdom, family leave in Norway, affordable public housing in Singapore, universal public schooling in Finland, the drug policy in Portugal, accessible internet for all in Estonia, renewable energy in Uruguay, a biodiversity law in Costa Rica, and universal pensions in New Zealand. Within each chapter, Zapata examines the history of the policy and its current form and draws a comparison with the United States. By acknowledging challenges and still offering solutions, this book ends on a hopeful note that positive change is possible. VERDICT This book is recommended and appropriate for libraries supporting students and general readers interested in exploring governmental policies from abroad that could work in the U.S.--Karen Bordonaro
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A tour of progressive countries and their solutions to problems of social issues such as education and health care. An American resident in Europe, Hakimi Zapata tours the world to analyze the ways in which developed nations have enacted programs leading to progress in meeting social needs. "I became convinced that as we fight for a more equitable and sustainable existence," she writes, "progressives need to arm themselves with tried-and-tested ideas that provide clear inspiration for our own policies." In recent memory, she notes by way of example, health care in Britain was a congeries of charity hospitals, rural clinics, and private practices that confined good medical care to those who could afford it, leaving the rest to fend for themselves, very much like America today. Reforms enacted by social activists and strong political leadership led to the national program that, despite the cries of right-wing critics, actually works quite well: As Hakimi Zapata notes, her out-of-pocket payments have been confined to a few vaccinations not covered by national insurance for travel abroad. One such country a couple of generations ago was Singapore, where every citizen has access to housing--and, more, to homeownership, a stake in the game. Norway, once a highly conservative society, leads the world in social programs that include evenly shared, subsidized parenting duties, "a more equal division of family responsibilities in both the short and long term." Hakimi Zapata does note that bureaucracies attached to these programs can sometimes be cumbersome and difficult to negotiate, but the outcomes are unmistakable: Finland leads the world in education--"our only treasure," one administrator says. As for the United States? "America is not working for the majority of us," Hakimi Zapata writes. "Instead it's working for a tiny superrich minority that amassed its wealth on the back of our collective labor--and our collective impoverishment." Full of lessons for American activists on how to bring enhanced social welfare programs into reality, despite the odds. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
