How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster
by Jonathan M. Katz
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Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2013
320 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
On January 12, 2010, the deadliest earthquake in the history of the Western Hemisphere struck the nation least prepared to handle one. Jonathan M. Katz, the only full-time American news correspondent in Haiti, was inside his house when it buckled along with hundreds of thousands of others. In this visceral first-hand account, Katz takes readers inside the terror of that day, the devastation visited on ordinary Haitians, and through the monumental--yet misbegotten--rescue effort that followed.
More than half of American adults gave money for Haiti, part of a global response that reached $16.3 billion in pledges. But three years later the effort has foundered. Its most important promises--to rebuild safer cities, alleviate severe poverty, and strengthen Haiti to face future disasters--remain unfulfilled. How did so much generosity amount to so little? What went wrong?
The Big Truck That Went By presents a hard hitting investigation into international aid, finding that the way wealthy countries give today makes poor countries seem irredeemably hopeless, while trapping millions in cycles of privation and catastrophe. Katz follows the money to uncover startling truths about how good intentions go wrong, and what can be done to make aid "smarter."
Reporting at the side of Bill Clinton, Wyclef Jean, Sean Penn, Haiti's leaders and people, Katz also creates a complex, darkly funny, and unexpected portrait of one of the world's most fascinating countries. The Big Truck That Went By is not only a definitive account of Haiti's earthquake, but of the world we live in today.
"Katz debunks the assumption that a disaster leads to social disintegration or rioting and observes how media sensationalism prompted unwise giving." - Publishers Weekly
"Starred Review. An eye-opening, trailblazing exposé." - Kirkus Reviews
"With lucidity and great humanity, Jonathan Katz has written THE book on Haiti's devastating earthquake and its bungled reconstruction. For anyone who wants to know why the "international community" can't fix anything anymore, but who still hope to find solutions to global problems, this book is a must-read." - Jon Lee Anderson, bestselling author of Che Guevera: a Revolutionary Life
"A brilliant piece of writing… the best description of living through the Haiti quake I've read anywhere." - Jonathan Alter
"Katz is a great storyteller who enmeshes the reader in a lively web of history, incident, and examples of humanity pushing through disaster, hard luck, iniquity, and triumph to muck it up all over again." - The judges of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award
"Beautifully-written, brave, and riveting, The Big Truck That Went By tells the devastating story of the post-earthquake reconstruction effort in Haiti. Weaving together his personal experiences with the knowledge gained from his intensive investigative report, Katz offers us an autopsy of a global relief effort gone wrong. But the book also offers us a moving portrait of the courage, humor, and vision of the Haitians he worked with, offering a glimpse of the possibilities for a different future. Anyone seeking to understand Haiti's current situation, as well as the broader impasses of our current model of aid, should read this book." - Laurent Dubois, author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History
"The horror of the catastrophic Haitian earthquake of 2010, the adrenaline rush of being a reporter in the middle of dramatic events, the frustration of watching local politicians and poorly informed outsiders combine to paralyze the recovery effort, and the joy of finding love in the midst of the ruins: it's all here. Katz, the only American journalist on the scene when the earthquake struck, gives us unique insights into the plight of a close neighbor whose fate is vitally connected to our own." - Jeremy Popkin, author of You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery
This information about The Big Truck That Went By was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Jonathan M. Katz was the 2010 recipient of the Medill Medal for Courage in Journalism and the 2012 winner of the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for The Big Truck That Went By. He wrote and edited for the Associated Press for seven years, three and a half of which he spent as correspondent in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Katz has also reported from the Dominican Republic, China, Israel, the West Bank, Washington, New York, Mexico, and around the Caribbean. He is a graduate of Northwestern University.
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