A descendant of missionary Hiram Bingham reviews his ancestor's memoir about bringing Christianity and Western civilization to Hawaii in the 1820s-1840s, drawing parallels to modern Effective Altruism and examining what lessons today's do-gooders can learn from this earlier generation of world-savers. Longer summary

This book review examines Hiram Bingham's 1847 memoir about his 21-year mission to Hawaii, drawing explicit parallels between 19th-century missionaries and modern Effective Altruists. The reviewer, Bingham's descendant, describes how seven missionary couples successfully converted most of Hawaii to Christianity, created a writing system, achieved widespread literacy, and introduced Western technology and social reforms. However, Bingham's anti-Catholic political meddling eventually backfired when a French warship forced Hawaii to accept religious freedom and other demands. The review concludes with lessons for modern do-gooders: act with courage, be a moral exemplar, make powerful allies, critically examine your beliefs, and avoid escalating conflicts beyond your control. Shorter summary

This review of Masooda Bano's 'Breakdown in Pakistan' examines how Western aid systematically destroys the capacity of local voluntary organizations to mobilize collective action, replacing diverse community-driven institutions with professionalized NGOs dependent on foreign funding. Longer summary

The review explores how foreign aid unintentionally eviscerates local institutions through a process the reviewer calls creating 'NGO monocultures.' Using Masooda Bano's ethnographic research in Pakistan, it shows how voluntary organizations that once thrived on local donations and volunteers lose both when they accept Western funding and adopt professional NGO practices. The review traces several mechanisms: visible material comfort of paid staff destroys signals of sacrifice that motivated donors; donor priorities replace local problem-solving; and the possibility of payment kills volunteerism. Drawing on the reviewer's own aid work experience across multiple countries, the piece documents this pattern's global prevalence and catastrophic long-term effects. The review concludes by discussing what both traditional aid work and effective altruism could learn from Bano's analysis, emphasizing the need to preserve rather than destroy local capacity for collective action. Shorter summary