Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time | 
 enlarge | Authors: Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  1215 reviews
Sales Rank: 14
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0143038257
Dewey Decimal Number: 371.82209549
EAN: 9780143038252
ASIN: 0143038257
Publication Date: January 30, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The astonishing, uplifting story of a real-life Indiana Jones and his humanitarian campaign to use education to combat terrorism in the Talibans backyard Anyone who despairs of the individuals power to change lives has to read the story of Greg Mortenson, a homeless mountaineer who, following a 1993 climb of Pakistans treacherous K2, was inspired by a chance encounter with impoverished mountain villagers and promised to build them a school. Over the next decade he built fifty-five schoolsespecially for girlsthat offer a balanced education in one of the most isolated and dangerous regions on earth. As it chronicles Mortensons quest, which has brought him into conflict with both enraged Islamists and uncomprehending Americans, Three Cups of Tea combines adventure with a celebration of the humanitarian spirit.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1210 more reviews...
Boring Title, Great Book August 21, 2008
When my mother gave me this book to read I was a little scared of what I might find inside. The name, "Three Cups of Tea" didn't sound very exciting. The cover, showing three young girls studying, didn't look very appealing. And the subtitle, "One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time," wasn't the most exciting thing in the world either. It looked like an Oprah book or a chick lit book.
Since my Mom recommended it, I read it...and thoroughly enjoyed "Three Cups of Tea."
The book is about Central Asia Institute director, Greg Mortenson, and how building schools in the highlands of Pakistan and Afghanistan became his passion. Still sounds like an Oprah book, doesn't it? Well it is much, much more. The reader gets the account of how Mortenson's failed attempt to climb K2 nearly led to his death and how that failure gave him the idea of building schools in remote regions of Asia.
The reader is also given a thoughtful look at what it was like for Americans who were in this part of Asia when the planes struck the World Trade Center in 2001. Mortenson's ideas on promoting peace through education seem somewhat idealistic at times, but the man's passion for this cause comes blazing through in every chapter.
"Three Cups of Tea" is an exciting adventure story as well as an inspirational story showing that one man can make a difference.
Required reading August 21, 2008
gripping from start to finish. An important book for readers of all ages. A lesson in choosing the really important issues and having the guts to follow the righ path.
Amazing! August 20, 2008
I would definitely vote this book as an award winner (it gets really good after the first half -- especially towards the last third of the book). Greg Mortenson definitely needs to win the Nobel Peace Prize! A definite must-read for our times.
Schools, not bombs August 20, 2008
It's a little rough in the beginning with the narrator's obvious opinion that Mortenson poops sunshine but the story draws you in. And you will cheer at the end and gratefully write a check. This is how peace will happen in the world. Our leaders will be almost irrelevant to the process.
Boys and Girls: Raining on this Happy Parade August 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yes, this is a marvelous tale of compassion and dedication. But there are reasons to fear that it's sadly misdirected and may not accomplish all that it might.
The problem lies in the basic mission of the Central Asia Institute as stated on their website (ikat dot org): "To Promote and support community-based education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan." That's backed up by the picture at the top of that web page, which has what appears to be four girls and a single boy reading books, the boy appearing smaller, more withdrawn, and slightly separated from the girls. The girls belong to a group. He is an outsider. The cover of this book displays an even greater bias. It shows three girls and no boys.
Educating girls is good. Educating boys is good. But educating girls in preference to boys is a prescription for disaster, particularly in that culture and at this time in history. Why? Because in that volatile, ideologically driven culture, it creates the danger that education will become something that girls do and boys don't. Boys will seek meaning elsewhere, particularly in drugs and violence, both easily available in that region. The more Western the education being given to girls, the more anti-Western these boys will become. And if I had to state which side would win, it would be those angry young men. Size, strength, and violence trump all else. These schools may meet with less opposition than they would have met had they laid special stress on educating boys instead. Greg Mortenson's foes may know something he doesn't.
Last year, a friend talked to me about programs in Africa that help women set up small businesses. When I asked him what that would mean for all the now-unnecessary young men, deprived of any role in family life, he had no answer. When I pointed out to him that a few thousand angry young men could reduce the typical African country to absolute chaos, nullifying all the good those programs for women might accomplish, he still had no answer.
Not amount of politically correct dogma can erase one important fact. If you want to establish a healthy, stable society, you need devote much greater effort to turning boys into the right sort of men than you do teaching girls to be women. Feminist may rage, but biology drives what girls become. Culture determines whether boys become dedicated fathers or angry, sexual predators.
If they truly want to "fight terrorism and build nations one school at at time," Greg Mortenson and his Central Asia Institute need to reverse their emphasis, taking on the far more difficulty task of training and educating boys to be men. Otherwise, I fear much of their effort may be in vain and even counterproductive.
--Michael W. Perry
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