“MacFarquhar’s narrative alternates beautifully between profiles of individual do-gooders and this history of ideas that undermine their work. She returns us to the age-old questions about how to live, not by thinking in philosophical abstractions or hypothetical scenarios but through the lived experience of real people—their psychology, influences, relationships, triumphs, and shortcomings: the messy place where ethics actually lives”
“Thanks to MacFarquhar’s curiosity and insight, and her embrace of complexity and ambiguity in storytelling, these portraits don’t read at all like a secular version of Lives of the Saints.”
“MacFarquhar writes full and nuanced profiles, often by letting her subjects speak for themselves. She doesn’t cast judgment on their ideals or their struggles to live up to them.
