May 17, 2007 | Read Time: 1 minute
NEW BOOKS
A Billion Bootstraps: Microcredit, Barefoot Banking, and the Business Solution for Ending Poverty
by Phil Smith and Eric Thurman
“A microcredit loan is often the only break impoverished people receive that can move them up the rungs of the economic ladder in their communities,” writes Phil Smith, former chief executive officer of Prize Energy Corporation and the Tide West Oil Company. Mr. Smith and his co-author, Eric Thurman, former chief executive officer of Opportunity International, offer an overview of the history and logic of microcredit, and a primer for potential microcredit lenders. Through microfinance, nonprofit groups and other organizations offer small loans to entrepreneurs in poor countries and are then repaid gradually as new businesses thrive. The authors offer tips and exercises to help readers understand how microcredit works, how they can do the most good with their money and time, and how they can get involved with microcredit providers and programs. Short case studies are interspersed throughout the book to illustrate the benefits of microcredit. Five appendices include a question-and-answer section with the authors, a brief history of the lending philosophy, more sources of information, and tips on calculating results of such loans. “I have found that even the poorest people on earth are inventive and industrious,” writes Mr. Thurman. “Given the slightest assistance in support of their plans, they will achieve lasting results at very low cost.”
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies, 1221 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020; (212) 904-2000 or (212) 512-2000; http://www.mcgraw-hill.com; 225 pages; $24.95; ISBN 0-07-148997-5.
