NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Bloomberg * Forbes * The Spectator Recipient of Foreign Policy's 2013 Albie Award A powerful portrayal of Jeffrey Sachs's ambitious quest to end global poverty nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; nbsp;"The poor you will always have with you," to cite the Gospel of Matthew 26:11. Jeffrey Sachs--celebrated economist, special advisor to the Secretary General of the United Nations, and author of the influential bestsellernbsp;The End of Poverty--disagrees.nbsp; In his view, poverty is a problem that can be solved. With single-minded determination he has attempted to put into practice his theories about endingnbsp;extremenbsp;poverty, to prove that the world's most destitute people can be lifted onto "the ladder of development." nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; In 2006, Sachs launchednbsp;the Millennium Villages Project,nbsp;a daring five-year experiment designed to test his theories in Africa.nbsp;The first Millennium village was in Sauri, a remote cluster of farming communities in western Kenya. The initial results were encouraging.nbsp;With his first taste of success, and backednbsp;by one hundred twenty million dollars from George Soros and other likeminded donors,nbsp;Sachs rolled out a dozen model villages in ten sub-Saharan countries.nbsp;Once his approach was validated it would be scaled up across the entire continent. At least that was the idea. nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; For the past six years, Nina Munk has reported deeply on the Millennium Villages Project, accompanying Sachs on his official trips to Africa and listening in on conversations with heads-of-state, humanitarian organizations, rival economists, and development experts. She has immersed herself in the lives of people in two Millennium villages: Ruhiira, in southwest Uganda, and Dertu, in the arid borderland between Kenya and Somalia. Accepting the hospitality of camel herders and small-hold farmers, and witnessing their struggle to survive, Munk came to understand the real-life issues that challenge Sachs's formula for ending global poverty.nbsp; nbsp; nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; THE IDEALIST is the profound and moving story of what happens when the abstract theories of a brilliant, driven man meet the reality of human life.