Abdallah Daar

The author, a world-renowned transplant surgeon, scientist, bioethicist and global health expert, is a Tanzanian born into Swahili culture, with ancestral roots in Arabia, the Caucasus Mountains, and Ethiopia. This memoir chronicles the exploration of his multiple identities, taking the reader on an absorbing journey to Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Zanzibar, South Africa, Idi Amin's Uganda, London, Oxford, the Middle East, the US, Canada, and beyond. We meet slaves, royalty, great heroes, Nobel Prize winners, and mass murderers. It is an impassioned call to resist the polarization that is wrenching apart people of different "races," cultures and religions. Inspired by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, The Garment of Destiny is a remarkable journey that explores the many facets of identity, its formation and who controls it. Are we who we are-- or who we are as seen by others? "I believe that there is no clash of civilizations," Daar says, "because we have one human civilization."

The Grandest Challenge begins with a simple premise: that every person's life is of equal value, regardless of where in the world he or she lives. It also begins with an alarming fact: that in this age of spectacular scientific advances, it is still those who live in the developed world--mainly the west--who overwhelmingly benefit from our enormous new power to combat disease and enhance food, while those in the developing world are far more likely to die for lack of basic health care and inexpensive nutrition. As personalized medicine, designer drugs, and high-quality nutrients become more readily available than ever in the richest parts of the world, distinguished doctors Abdallah Daar and Peter Singer urge us to pause and ask these vital questions: Who will have access to the life-enhancing advances of biotechnology? And who are these advances ultimately meant to help? In this challenging, controversial, thought-provoking, and humane book, Daar and Singer inspire us to look more deeply at our new science, and at the revolution that is already changing all of our lives.