Description: Reckoning with one's role in perpetuating systematic inequality, Bruce Robbins examines the implications of a humanitarianism in which the prosperous are the both the cause and the beneficiaries of the abhorrent conditions they seek to remedy.
Review Quotes: "In The Beneficiary, Bruce Robbins wants to make room for the note of guilt in our songs of gratitude. Who is a beneficiary? Robbins's answer is that it is probably you. . . . Perhaps in the future tallying up the planetary cost of national happiness will become so painful we'll give up that thought experiment altogether. But if Robbins has his way, we'll not only still be thinking globally -- we'll live in a world that makes doing so tolerable."--Christina Lupton "Los Angeles Review of Books"