You're History: How People Make the Difference

This book arose out of a challenge. The challenge was made by Bob Geldof to the British academic and historian Michelle Brown. Pop singers raise huge sums of money for Band Aid and touch the hearts of people from all walks of life.

But to give money can be an easy way out. How does the so-called intelligentsia respond with their minds (not just their hearts and pockets) to the appalling disparities in the conditions of members of the human race.

This is a challenge that a number of notable and gifted people have responded to enthusiastically. You're History includes contributions from John Simpson and Martin Bell to the former Irish President Mary Robinson and the noted US feminist intellectual Charlotte Bunch. Other authors include Martin Bell, Stevie Davies, Sir David Ramsbotham, Richard Curtis, Benjamin Zephaniah, Ricardo Navarro, Founder of the Friends of the Earth and Simon Counsell, Director of The Rainforest Foundation.

Ultimately the purpose of this book is to make people think and connect wires, to encourage them to question their own place within the world, to acknowledge personal and collective responsibility and to discuss a range of situations and issues that have been changed by individuals.