It makes us human. It can make us suffer. It can make us insufferable. It can make all the difference in the world. It can fall short.
In Help, Garret Keizer raises the questions we ask every day and in every relationship that matters to us. What does it mean to help? When does our help amount to hindrance? When are we getting less help -- or more -- than we actually want? When are we kidding ourselves in the name of helping someone else?
Drawing from history, literature, firsthand interviews, and personal anecdotes, Help invites us to ponder what is at stake whenever one human being tries to assist another. From the biblical Good Samaritan to present-day humanitarians, from heroic sacrifices in times of political oppression to nagging dilemmas in times of ordinary stress, Garret Keizer takes us on a journey that is at once far-ranging and never far from where we live. He reminds us that in our perpetual need for help, and in our frequent perplexities over how and when to give it, we are not alone.