By a curious set of circumstances, Howard Burton found himself hired as a fundraising consultant at UNESCO's Paris headquarters. Overwhelmed by the bureaucratic double-speak and smug complacency that he encountered everywhere he went, he decided to use his clear-eyed analytical skills to ask a very different sort of question: What, exactly, was UNESCO doing that was actually worth funding in the first place?

Filled with his customary dry wit and penetrating observations, this book is another insightful and provocative work of societal commentary from the author of First Principles: Building Perimeter Institute and Exceptionally Upsetting: How Americans are increasingly confusing knowledge with opinion & what can be done about it. Howard Burton holds a PhD in physics and an MA in philosophy, and was the founding director of Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.