The Price of Life

In Search of What We're Worth and Who Decides

Jenny Kleeman

$36.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Picador
25 June 2024

Reportage & collected journalism; Social research & statistics; Social & cultural anthropology

* $2-3,000 to save the life of a child in Africa
* £15,180 to hire a hitman
* $368,901 to pay the average ransom demand

We say that life is priceless. Yet the cost of saving a life, creating a life or compensating for a life taken is routinely calculated and put into practice. In a world in love with data, it is possible to run a cost-benefit analysis on anything - including life itself. For philanthropists, judges, criminals, healthcare providers and government ministers, it's just part of the job. In The Price of Life, journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Jenny Kleeman takes us on an adventure to meet some of the people who decide what we're worth.

In a series of extraordinary encounters - with people who have faked their own death or lost a loved one to terrorism, with hitmen and with modern day slaves - she discovers more questions than answers. What does it mean for our humanity when we crunch the numbers to decide who gets the expensive life-saving drugs, and who misses out? What do we learn about ourselves when philanthropic giving by the effective altruists in Silicon Valley is received by some, while others are left to suffer? Are some lives really worth more than others? And what happens when we take human emotions out of the equation? Does it make for a fairer decision-making process - or for moral bankruptcy?

Exploring the final frontier in monetization, Kleeman asks what we lose and what we gain by leaving the judgments that really matter up to cold, hard logic.

By: Jenny Kleeman
Imprint: Picador
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 233mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 434g
ISBN: 9781035004973
ISBN 10: 1035004976
Pages: 352
Publication Date: 25 June 2024
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Jenny Kleeman is a journalist, documentary-maker and radio presenter. She writes for the Guardian, Tortoise, The Times and The Sunday Times. She has reported for BBC One's Panorama, Channel 4's Dispatches and VICE News Tonight on HBO, as well as making thirteen films from across the globe for Channel 4's Unreported World. The Price of Life is her second book.