Home In The World By Amartya Sen| A Book Review

Home In The World is a beautiful intellectual memoir. By "intellectual memoir", I mean it is a memoir on thought development.

Maybe Amartya Sen set out to write a memoir on his life, what he did gave to us is a memoir on his intellectual development. To prove this, you need to think about the fact that he didn't write about his receiving of the Nobel Prize. He mentioned it as something in passing.

But if this book was designed to be a memoir on intellectual development, then it has achieved that spectacularly. This is finely written and clearly argued.

A major influence on Amartya Sen's life is Rabindranath Tagore. This is for a good reason. Sen attended a school founded by Tagore, a school established with the sole goal of being different. Exams were not administered, debates were encouraged, rounded learning was celebrated and dissent was respected. These values would shape Sen's life forever.

All through you will see how the man who won the Nobel Prize developed his thinking about certain things. One idea I picked from him is the idea of development as freedom. He developed this idea after saving the life of a man who had been lynched during an interreligious clash in India. The man said he went out to search for work when he was caught between the violent clashes. These are common cases here in Jos. Ultimately, development IS the freedom for people to do what they want to do without causing harm to themselves or to others. In simple words, development is not just something that empowers people financially, it gives people more options.

He shared so many stories including his stay in the UK, his travels across the world, and important friendships/partnership with several people that went on to become prominent people in the global order. It goes without saying that one's circle in life is very important.

Sen loved arguing, he loved debating ideas and he often fell into one wherever he found himself. I really loved this side of him. We cannot live in vacuums, we must interact with the world and the only for the best ideas to win is for us to have debates and conversations that are geared towards presenting the best side of each side and the worst side of each side. Sadly, this is an element that is missing in today's world. We are all moving into closeted circles, echo chambers.

This is a good book.