Here, with his characteristic concern for the ill-health of the poor, Farmer suggests

that there is something deeply wrong with the world when all the globe-spanning
interconnections, affluence, and inventiveness commonly associated with
globalization have not led to a global sharing of wealth, the transcendence of global
inequalities, and the planetary dissemination of scientific solutions to common
human health problems. To be genuinely committed to the advancement of global
human rights, he argues, we have to remember all those for whom globalization has
only meant more suffering. For the same reason, Farmer suggests, when we hear
happy stories of globalization leading automatically to the spread of scientific
knowledge and shared human development we need to keep asking ‘what about the
poor and the sick?’ Constantly asking this question himself, Farmer reveals a great
sensitivity to the ways in which ‘globalization’ is used in different ways in different
contexts. Invoking the ‘era of globalization’ he indicates a critical savvy about the
way the word is often used as an upbeat buzzword designed to promote a certain
kind of free market capitalist development, but at the same time, by connecting the
term to ‘scientific advancement’ Farmer also activates a more scholarly use of the
term as a bracket description for increasing global interconnection.

Kidder’s title of the book, which comes from the Haitian proverb “Beyond
mountains there are mountains,” may allude to his experience with Farmer on their
journey through the mountains . Many of the population’s displacement and adverse
health consequences arose from the creation of the seemingly beautiful dammed
lake (Lac de Péligre); I was able to learn about human-environment relations. This
relationship is simply a mode of explanation that displays the bond of political
economy with cultural ecology. In Kidder’s account of Morne Michel, the reader sees
that the hydroelectric dam is an example of a development project similar to those
later promoted by the World Bank as part of a structural adjustment program to
attract foreign capital. Many Morne Michel residents did not obtain any
reimbursement from this dam built during the mid-1950’s; rather, they suffered
negative consequences such as displacement, deepening poverty, and ill-health .In
addition, they were forced to adapt to their new environment through out-migration
to Haitian urban areas, where many were exposed to HIV. Thus, with its blend of
social and material concepts and sciences, human- environment relations reveal the
nature and effects of ongoing struggles over natural resources on Earth, both biotic
and abiotic.