"Over the last one hundred years, the physical well being of the world's population has improved far more than in all of the previous natural history of humankind."Charles Kenny's recent book Getting Better (http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Better-Development-Succeeding-Improve/dp/0465020151) is an antidote to the pessimism many of us feel about the state of the world. Those of us in international development are frustrated we have not been able to find a toolkit of approaches that reliably increases growth in poor countries. Kenny acknowledges this frustration, but shows that many indicators of wellbeing have improved rapidly even in the absence of consistent economic growth:More... (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dennis-whittle/got-to-admit-its-getting-_b_907141.html)