I like to read books from both sides of the political spectrum in order to better understand our country’s political landscape. Even though I expect politics coming in books written by politicians, I was surprised by the type of politics in the last book I read. Riding the coat tails of his memoir My Life’s success, President Bill Clinton has written a new book entitled Giving. The book intends to encourage people with means to give by showing them what, how, and where they can give. By people with means, Clinton suggests that anyone with even limited ability to give ought to give. The ultimate point is that every person has a duty to help his fellow man through charitable acts of some sort. In the book Clinton outlines several main categories under which there are ways for any person to give:
- Giving Time – Helping a charity by working as a volunteer.
- Giving Money – Obvious.
- Giving Things – See Giving money in a non liquid state.
- Giving Experience – Helping schools by becoming a teacher during your retirement, passing down your learned skills and advice to people in need.
While most people understand “how” to give, having a manual listing many honored charities can be useful. Therefore the best audiences for this book include people who are interested in charitable organizations, people who work in Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), or people who want to give to charity but for some reason are distrustful (or unknowledgeable) of the process in general. The book reads mainly as two parts “who’s who in NGOs/Charities” and one part “Hillary helped here, there, and everywhere.” The fact that a large part of this book reads as a campaign piece for Hillary is really disappointing. I felt that the Hillary grandstanding in the book seemed intentional and contrived: that they appeared to be added to talk about Hillary, instead of occurring because of her natural proximity to Bill and his work. I think these passages will tend to deter/alienate some readers. Perhaps I’m reading too much into the book, but I felt that a book designed to encourage charitable giving using Bill Clinton’s experiences/contacts gained in the years after his presidency, doesn’t need to add to Hillary’s bid for the White House.
I have to say though, charitable giving is a very noble cause, and an increase in giving can only help society as a whole. Therefore any effort by prominent influential people attempting to encourage giving are welcome in my opinion. We need more wealthy people like Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet who get rid of their excessive wealth to aid those less fortunate than themselves. What is the point of having excess money, when it could be used to really help people? More people need to give, and more people need to realize that they do in fact have enough for themselves and have the ability to give. Everyone can give something to another person, you don’t need to be rich in money only rich in kindness and character.