The International Bank of Bob: Connecting Our Worlds One $25 Kiva Loan at a Time

A well-meaning entrepreneur, Harris accumulated the experiences for his memoir as a journactivist: in Dubai to report for a luxury travel site, he encounters migrants working under extreme imbalances of wealth and quality of life.%C2%A0His ideals and desire to help at a grassroots level are supplemented by travel to more complex economies, ultimately coalescing in personal microloans, the same economic lending policy championed by Bangladeshi Nobel-laureate Muhammad Yunus. Brandishing his new volition, Harris discovers a loaning organization and, with its benediction, creates and tracks his own loans to needy beneficiaries abroad. The experience takes him to far-flung economies, many rebuilding after the strife of internal war and genocide, or recovering from violent political and governmental upheaval. With as much objectivity as possible, Harris investigates his specific microlender's field operations as well as those of non-affiliated financial players. The narrative is buoyed by anecdotes from politically and economically-scarred places, the local characters he meets and expected travel drama he must overcome. Although his feet are firmly planted, Harris spends equal time considering both the celebrated and negative aspects of microlending. There's ample humor and empathy, yet the book's tone, sentimentality, and extensive footnotes undermine the well-meaning intentions of his literary, if not his actual, enterprise. (Mar.)