Amartya Sen

I interviewed Amartya Sen today for something I’m writing about how important communities are to helping people really get on in life, and turn dreams into reality. I’ll post a few comments shortly – but in the meantime, here’s some of the key links to the Nobel prize winner’s work. He’s had a massive impact on politicians of my generation, and Development as Freedom (1999), was probably one of the most influential books on me, I’ve read.

Many of Prof Sen’s early lines of argument were set out in ‘Equality of What’. His Nobel prize autobiography is here and his Nobel lecture is here. The work developing a definition of exactly what kind of ‘capabilities’ societies should help support was developed together with Martha Nussbaum, whose bio page at Chicago university is here. Finally, some of the thinking about capabilities in high income countries is underway. You can access the links here.