Chasing Chaos
By Jessica Alexander
By Jessica Alexander
By Jessica Alexander
By Jessica Alexander
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$20.00
Oct 15, 2013 | ISBN 9780770436919
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Oct 15, 2013 | ISBN 9780770436926
-
$20.00
Oct 15, 2013 | ISBN 9780770436919
-
Oct 15, 2013 | ISBN 9780770436926
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Praise
âIn Chasing Chaos, Jessica Alexander serves up a sharp critique of the multi-billion dollar humanitarian aid industry, wrapped in a tender coming-of-age story. Her quietly evocative prose recreates the painful, poignant, and sometimes hilarious experience of marching into âthe fieldâ of armed conflict and disaster to relieve suffering, supported by donations from those who expect heroism. With remarkable honesty and empathy, Alexander reveals how absurd and presumptuous it is to imagine we can fix the world and, even more profoundly, why we must continue to try. An important book.â âSheri Fink, New York Times bestselling author of Five Days at Memorial
âTerrific new memoirâŠItâs Wild in Sudan.â âNicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist
âIn her new book Chasing Chaos, Jessica Alexander offers a poignant, clear-eyed look at the world of international disaster relief and her own addiction to aid workâŠChasing Chaos is a reminder that happiness is an act of delicate and ever-evolving inner compromise. The book makes you simultaneously want to pack your bags and never leave home.â âThe Daily Beast
âEnlighteningâŠeye-openingâŠChasing Chaos is a solid contribution to what is hopefully a growing genre of writing about a sector that deserves more attention and oversight.â âAssociated Press
âJessica Alexanderâs book, Chasing Chaos, is not only a candid portrait of the life of a humanitarian aid worker, but a wonderful coming-of-age story that will resonate with any woman who has questioned how to have a more meaningful life.â
âMia Farrow
âRefreshingly absent in Chasing Chaos are any declarations of grandeur or of superior moral fiber. Rather, Alexanderâs honesty about her own ignorance on the true severity of the conditions in the places she visits is precisely what makes her remarkable story so accessible. Even now, after a decade working with multiple humanitarian organizations, the author still makes plain how much she has to learn. Alexander is proud of her achievements, and certainly should be, but it is in her detailing of the vast room for improvement in the system that she focuses, with a dry wit and healthy dose of honest self-evaluation, that we are able to connect with her experiences on a more personal level. We are all the more fortunate for it.â
âBustle.com
âI think that is what Jessica does so well: puts a human face on aid work. And not just her face, but the faces of her international and national colleaguesâŠJessica reveals the inconsistencies, the ambivalence of aid work as she takes us to Sudan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, New York, and Haiti. But, she also offers valuable lessons for the next generation.â âBrendan Rigby, whydev.org
âWhat Mary Roach does for the alimentary canal in Gulp and Robin Nagle does for garbage collecting in Picking Up, Jessica Alexander does for global catastrophe in Chasing ChaosâŠAn entertaining memoir of life on the front lines of global catastrophe reveals as much about its author as the world of humanitarian aid.â
âShelf Awareness
âA no-holds-barred description of what it is like to travel to world disaster sites and engage in the complex, challenging, nitty-gritty work of making a difference across lines of culture, class, age, gender, and perspective. In telling the story of her decade as a young and passionate humanitarian aid worker, Jessica Alexander also manages to tell us the best and the worst of what this work is like and to speculate on the aid establishmentâhow it has changed, where it works and what its limits are. A must read for anyone with global interestsâand that should be all of us.â âRuth Messinger, President, American Jewish World Service
âChasing Chaos examines the lives that aid workers lead and the work which aid workers do with honesty, clarity, and warmth. While the book is peppered with hilarious anecdotesâit is also salted with tears. Honest, genuine, heartfelt tears. This life and this work that aid and development workers embark upon so often oscillates wildly between stomach bursting laughter and shoulder seizing weepingâChasing Chaos captures these oscillations, and the doldrums in between the ends of the spectrum, perfectly.â âCasey Kuhlman, New York Times bestselling author of Shooter
âDuring ten years of working with the sick, the hungry, and the injured, Jessica Alexander touches and is touched by victims of genocide, earthquakes, tsunamis, and bombs. The compelling quality of this book is Alexanderâs honesty, sharp observations, and conversational prose. With humor and insight, she shares the intimate details of her everyday life. Even if youâre a seasoned traveler, this entry into the world of humanitarian aid organizationsâthe good, the bad, and the frustratingâis fascinating.â âRita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad
âIn Chasing Chaos, Alexander takes us to a place where few outsiders can go, cracking open the rarefied world of humanitarianism to bare its contradictionsâand her ownâwith boldness and humor. The result is an immensely valuable field guide to the mind of that uniquely powerful and vulnerable of beasts: the international aid worker.â âJonathan M. Katz, author of The Big Truck That Went By: How the World Came to Save Haiti and Left Behind a Disaster
âNot only is Jessica Alexander a wonderful writerâher clear, evocative prose transported me into refugee camps in Darfur, war-trials in Sierra Leone and post-earthquake Haitiâbut she is honest about the complexity of âdoing good,â without being defeatist. Funny, touching, and impossible to put down, this book should be required reading for anyone contemplating a career in aid, and for all of us who wonder how we can make a useful contribution to a better world, wherever we are.â âMarianne Elliott, author of Zen Under Fire: How I Found Peace in the Midst of War
âA fresh, very readable, highly personal account of the trials and tribulations of a young aid worker as she confronts the daily realitiesâ the good, the bad and the very uncomfortableâof life dealing with some of the most important humanitarian challenges of the last decade.â âRoss Mountain, Former Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General and Humanitarian Coordinator, United Nations
âYouâll start Chasing Chaos because you are interested in humanitarian aid. Youâll finish because of Jessica Alexanderâs irresistible storytelling: her honesty, her humanity, her wackadoodle colleagues, her dad. I loved it.â âKenneth Cain, author of Emergency Sex: and Other Desperate Measures
âA hardened idealistâs challenging look at the contradictions, complications, and enduring importance of humanitarian aid.â âRobert Calderisi, author of The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isnât Working
âJessica Alexanderâs Chasing Chaos is a must read for anyone concerned with helping those in need. Americans are some of the most generous people on Earth in reaching out to those coping with disasters, both natural and man-made, but how we give and what we give can make the difference between saving lives and only making a bad situation even worse. The path to hell really can be paved with good intentions, as Ms. Alexander perceptively describes and as I have seen during my own twenty plus years working in Africa and the Middle East, including many tours dealing with the same countries Alexander portrays. She knows of what she speaks.â âChristopher Datta, Former American Foreign Service Officer and author of Touched with Fire: Based on the True Story of Ellen Craft