One of the book’s most compelling sections is about the foundation’s support for family planning ... While Schwab allows that Gates has some good intentions and that the foundation has saved some lives, he documents how it tends to exaggerate or even concoct data about the impact of its work, including widely cited figures about just how many lives it has actually saved ... Schwab makes a strong case, based on years of reporting, that under the direction of a humbler man the Gates Foundation would probably be a more effective force for good ... The problem is that Schwab is rarely content to let the facts speak for themselves. Page after page devolves into insinuation and screeds against capitalism ... I found Schwab’s casual smears of other journalists to be especially distasteful.
Heated ... Schwab’s critique hits home when he details how Gates Foundation initiatives have misfired with little benefit from billions spent. Gates’s detractors will find useful ammunition here.
