What makes the most successful societies tick? The RSA's Matthew Taylor says we should recognise that relationships and values are more important than scientific or economic advances

World Bank economist and author of The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Short and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality discusses global economic inequality and says internal issues of inequality breed aggressive foreign policy

The Bangladeshi campaigner for lifting women out of poverty says village life has been wrongly idealised. It is not a harmonious whole, with the elders looking after the interests of all the villagers alike

Millions of people around the world still die of malnourishment each year, and 815 million people go hungry, according to statistics for the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. And yet, there is hope. Roger Thurow, Senior Fellow for Global Food and Agriculture at the Chicago Council and author of Enough: Why the World's Poorest Starve in an Age of Plenty, recommends books with inspiring examples of what individuals and organizations have done to try and reduce sickness and hunger around the world.

The UN veteran chooses books on the fate of children in the developing world and the Millennium Goals and says giving money to the poor works

"I was looking for books that offer good, practical ideas on how to make the world a better place." Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, recommends books to read if you'd like to save the world.

The prominent international economic adviser, Jeff Sachs, says we can reduce poverty by devoting just a modest fraction of our vast wealth to the effort.

The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize-winner talks about his creation of micro-credit and walks us through his five books on poverty and how to eradicate it - includes Zola's Germinal and Dickens' A Tale Of Two Cities

Modern microfinance was born in the late 1970s, and is now viewed as a key way of helping people in poor countries get out of poverty. Author and practitioner Stuart Rutherford recommends the best books to get a basic understanding of microfinance.