The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men: Inspiration, Vision, and Purpose in the Quest to End Malaria [Hardcover]

Bill Shore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 9, 2010

A small cadre of scientists—collaborators and competitors—are determined to develop a vaccine for malaria—a feat most tropical disease experts have long considered impossible. Skepticism, doubt, and a host of logistical and financial obstacles dog their quest. Success may ultimately elude them. Why, and how, do they persist?

Bill Shore is a writer, philanthropist, and business leader who knows from personal experience the rare and elusive nature of transformative innovation. In this moving and inspiring book, the story of these uncompromising scientists serves as springboard for his passionate inquiry into the character and moral fabric of those who devote their lives to solving the world’s most pressing and perplexing problems. What does it take to achieve the impossible? It takes whatever it takes.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

With over 25 years at the helm of Share Our Strength, an organization dedicated to eliminating childhood hunger, Shore can be considered something of an expert on social entrepreneurs. Defined as people determined to make nonprofit organizations self-sustaining by creating markets for their goods and services, social entrepreneurs are resetting the boundaries of what once were thought of as charities. Like their business counterparts, social entrepreneurs possess great imagination plus the indomitable, never-say-die spirit necessary to achieve what heretofore had been unattainable. Shore’s prime example is scientist/physician/researcher/visionary Stephen Hoffman, who bears every mark of someone who can succeed where no one else has. Hoffman, honcho at Sanaria Laboratory in Rockville, Maryland, is this close to perfecting a vaccine that promises to virtually eliminate malaria, a disease that infects an estimated 500 million people per year, and kills upwards of 3,000 children a day. Shore spares no superlatives in describing Hoffman, his work, and that of his counterparts in this worthy chronicle. --Donna Chavez

Review

Richard Russo,Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Empire Falls
“Bill Shore’s The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men is all about links, often invisible, between science and compassion, imagination and reason, philanthropy and markets, competition and cooperation. It’s also about solving some of the world’s most intractable problems—intractable, Shore argues passionately and convincingly, because all but a few of us too readily accept the conventional wisdom that they are unsolvable. It is, in other words, a necessary book.”

David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
“Bill Shore provides fascinating insights into the journeys of two wonderful men trying to change the world—one a scientist and the other the author himself. Both lives show that character, ambition, imagination, and the stubborn conviction that good is not good enough are indispensable to every leader seeking higher ground.”

Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2010
“An upbeat account of several American scientists researching malaria prevention.. Mr. Shore tells his story well.”

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: PublicAffairs; 1 edition (November 9, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1586487647
• ISBN-13: 978-1586487645
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.4 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #182,517 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Sociology > Medicine

More About the Author

Bill Shore is the founder and executive director of Share Our Strength®, a national nonprofit that is ending childhood hunger in America. Shore is also the chairman of Community Wealth Ventures®, Inc., a for-profit subsidiary of Share Our Strength that offers strategy and implementation services to foundations and nonprofit organizations, partnering with them to design and implement innovative approaches to growth and sustainability to promote social change.

Shore founded Share Our Strength in 1984 in response to the Ethiopian famine and subsequently renewed concern about hunger in the United States. From 1978 through 1987, Shore served on the senatorial and presidential campaign staffs of former U.S. Senator Gary Hart (D-Colorado). From 1988 to 1991, Shore served as chief of staff for former U.S. Senator Robert Kerrey (D-Nebraska). His transition from politics to innovative community service and his prescription for community change are documented in his first book, Revolution of the Heart (Riverhead Press, 1995). Shore's second book, The Cathedral Within (Random House, 1999), profiles a new breed of community leaders who are tapping every sector of society to improve community life. Shore's most recent book is The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men, published in November, 2010 by PublicAffairs.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pa., Shore earned his B.A. at the University of Pennsylvania and his law degree from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the board of directors of The Timberland Company and Venture Philanthropy Partners and was named one of America's Best Leaders (October 2005) by "US News & World Report."

Shore has been an adjunct professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and is currently an advisor for the Reynolds Foundation Fellowship program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking November 28, 2010

By Stephanie

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I picked up this book having read a couple of other books by Bill Shore (The Cathedral Within and The Light of Conscience). His two previous books were both readable and inspiring...and this latest was just as good. Shore's stories about some incredibly persistent and unrelenting scientific inquiry is backdrop for a bigger theme about what it takes to actually solve global social issues. The picture he paints of one of these scientists spending his time extracting material out of thousands of individual mosquitoes and going against the entire scientific establishment has stayed with me. Malaria has stuck around despite a lot of money and time going toward eradicating or controlling it. It would be easy to become jaded about the possibilities of putting an end to the scourge. Instead, Shore shows us a path toward a solution - and a way to think about other difficult social problems. I ran through this book in a day and felt both entertained and inspired.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars An Antidote to Cynicism December 3, 2010

By Dan Pallotta

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

An extraordinarily inspiring new book about possibility and courage told through the lens of one brave, disruptive soul's odyssey to create a vaccine for malaria.

The book is not just a treatise on malaria. It's an antidote to cynicism and despair, no matter where or how it might creep into our lives or our thinking. It is a forensic expose of all of those sinister and cunning things that try to suffocate our idealism, both from the outside and within - skepticism, doubt, distrust, suspicion, disbelief, pessimism,negativity, weariness and disenchantment.

In a culture that emphasizes fear and impossibility, here is an anthem that sings that all things are possible. It reminds us that if we are daring, failing, stumbling, falling, getting back up, and challenging the status quo, then we are really living. It's the opposite of the cover-your-ass, play-it-safe, the-sky-is-falling dirge the culture would have us humming.

Every once and a while people like Billy come along and remind us that life is miraculous if you want it to be. Thank God for them.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Creative Discovery Via Playing on a Different Field December 12, 2010

By Claire Wadlington

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Bill Shore tells a fascinating story of a diverse group of scientists approaching the "killer" problem that is malaria, a problem made the more difficult because it does not offer the high profits potential of many other drugs. While the military and travelers are interested, the primary market is poor countries, particularly in Africa, presenting challenges for distributing any vaccine or other solution. Shore uses scientist Steve Hoffman as a focal point for his theme that it takes imagination, and an unwillingness to see what many would perceive as dead ends, to solve a problem that is both scientific and economic. The analogies that Shore draws throughout the book between the work of Steve Hoffman and other scientists and solving other social problems which market forces haven't supported are thought provoking. Shore's core theme of thinking beyond the box - thinking about tackling the problem on a completely different playing field than it has been tackled before, is inspirational and has remained with me as I think about the book.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A reminder to nourish your imagination.... January 11, 2011

By Anna B.

Format:Hardcover

I'm aware of Bill Shore's work with the innovative national hunger organization Share Our Strength, so I read his latest book with great interest. I found it tremendously compelling, and as a previous reviewer mentioned, a great antidote to cynicism in an age where it seemingly floods everything and everyone.

There are a number of inspirational and pragmatic lessons to take from this book - but perhaps the best of the lot is the idea that allowing - and indeed, cultivating and encouraging - audacious imagination into our lives and our work is essential to creating progress and lasting change. I highly recommend this book to everyone working for change, and, indeed, anyone whose sense of optimism has been eroded by a culture of naysayers and cynics.

4.0 out of 5 stars Imagination is Key May 22, 2011

By Michael Griswold VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Bill Shore has written an amazing book about the people seeking to do something about malaria infection in the developing world where they don't have access to the drugs like many in Western countries would. Although wrapped in the cause of malaria, the book offers more of a generalized statement about what it takes to solve the seemingly unsolveable problems of this world. It takes unreasonable men and women who beileve that good is not good enough, also it takes people who are willing to do some creative thinking. It does not automatically take a genius with the latest and greatest idea, but can take the form of someone working with systems and organizations already in place. A really uplifting book amid a black sea of doom and gloom world is going to end tommorow thinking.

5.0 out of 5 stars Whether Young and Idealistic or Old and Jaded, this Book will Inspire December 29, 2010

By noblejc

Format:Hardcover

I must admit that thanks to my National Geographic subscription, I am pretty familiar with the facts behind this book. I was, however, not familiar with the author's experience in Africa. Putting a human face on this issue has enabled me to communicate the urgency of the task at hand to others. Really, nobody is immune to this threat.

But, to read about how these scientists are getting worked up over extracting mosquito saliva is somehow very inspiring and exciting. Shore's words echo the great Buckminster Fuller (creator of the Geodesic Dome) leaving you thinking, "Just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be."

I highly recommend this book to anybody seeking inspiration. Sometimes, the will to act is your biggest asset.