Last Best Gifts in the NYT

by Kieran Healy on January 27, 2007

My book, “Last Best Gifts: Altruism and the Market for Human Blood and Organs”:http://www.lastbestgifts.com, is “reviewed this weekend”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/books/review/Postrel.t.html?ex=157680000&en=f390b3396e0ec28a&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink by “Virginia Postrel”:http://www.dynamist.com/weblog/ in the _New York Times_. Obviously, I’m delighted: Virginia’s review is generous and perceptive, and in many ways it’s hard to think of a better choice of reviewer. For one thing, as many readers will probably know, Virginia is herself an organ donor — she “gave one of her kidneys”:http://www.american.com/archive/2006/november/organs-for-sale to her friend “Sally Satel”:http://www.sallysatelmd.com/ — and now regularly writes about the organ shortage and market incentives. For another, she has also followed the growth of economic sociology as a subfield, writing “a very good piece about it for the Boston Globe”:http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2005/07/24/market_share/ a while ago. And last, she has a generally libertarian point of view, and the stereotype is that libertarians and academic sociologists should be flinging abuse at each other on the topic of altruism, self-interest and the market — especially when it comes to markets in things like human organs. I wrote the book partly in the hope that it would advance the debate beyond some of the entrenched clichés that both sides cling to. Virginia’s review encourages me that I might have been in some way successful in this respect.