Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is the brainchild of the Pulitzer-winning husband-and-wife journalistic team, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. She has roots as a business executive and he's a longtime op-ed columnist for the New York Times; together, they continue to provoke change and raise awareness for global issues. When it was published in 2009, Half the Sky incited a movement to take action against the crises women of poverty are facing in the developing world. The movement of the book went on to spark a two-part miniseries on PBS, a social media game that raises funds for change, and, most invaluably, an enduring discussion of the problems as well as the potential solutions. The crises at the fore of this women’s rights initiative are horrifying in both context and scope, but WuDunn and Kristof present them with tact and respectfulness, balancing the harrowing truths with other, more optimistic realities about how these injustices are being fought against. As a reader, I felt I had an undeniable opportunity – and, perhaps, a moral obligation – to understand the experiences women across the country are facing; and even though I read many paragraphs through the blur of tears, I know Half the Sky was one of the most vitally important books I’ll ever read.