A recurring criticism of liberation theology (and Catholic social teaching) by its opponents is its naïve view of social reality, including its view of the poor and marginalized, and the impracticality of its solutions. This collection of addresses, essays, and one interview constitutes a dialogue between Paul Farmer, a physician and medical anthropologist who through his organization Partners in Health works on the health needs of the world's poor, and Gustavo Gutiérrez, whose pioneering work in liberation theology inspires and informs Farmer's work. This dialogue is a sustained rebuttal of those criticisms. Farmer and Gutiérrez demonstrate that a preferential option for the poor can yield a culture of accompaniment with the poor that can generate concrete and lasting results in liberating them from poverty.

The book begins with an appreciation of Fr. Gutiérrez's work by Dr. Farmer. The latter argues that medicine, to have a real impact on global health, must practice a preferential option for the poor. Only when the best health care can be guaranteed for those most in need can health care be guaranteed for all. Gutiérrez continues the dialogue in the second chapter with remarks familiar to those who know his thought, but with a difference. He speaks of theology as a means of showing the poor that God loves them. Thus the preferential option for the poor is not based on the poor being intrinsically better people, but simply on the fact that they possess the greater need. Furthermore, Jesus' example directs all people toward meeting that need first. The difference here is the focus on medicine—which is wonderfully appropriate for Gutiérrez, who was a medical student before entering seminary. Only the preferential option can enable medicine to work toward stopping the premature death suffered by the poor. The third chapter is a republished chapter of Farmer's. He argues that a preferential option for the poor enables the medical field to switch from charity care (which addresses only symptoms, and does so with inadequate resources) to a culture of accompaniment with the poor. Consequently, the poor are genuinely listened to and their concrete needs observed; only through such actions can effective treatment regimens be developed and applied. The fourth chapter, a republished essay of Gutiérrez's, follows Farmer well because the accompaniment the latter speaks of requires solidarity with the poor in their location and need. Gutiérrez argues that solidarity requires a realization of how personal and structural sin creates poverty, followed by a conversion to a deeper commitment to love the poor as God does, which makes such solidarity possible. This same chapter sets up the reader for Farmer's application, in the fifth chapter, of the idea of conversion in the practice of medicine in the midst of the world's worst health conditions: medicine must change from a commodity that is dispensed based on one's ability to pay (and that relegates those unable to pay to the violence of a premature death) to an equitable health system that provides the best health care according to need. The sixth chapter is another republished essay of Gutiérrez's, arguing that an authentic faith in Christ generates a preferential option for the poor. Finally, the book closes with an interview of Farmer and Gutiérrez conducted by the latter's Notre Dame colleague Daniel G. Groody, CSC. Both men recapitulate, on a personal note, themes presented throughout the book.

The editors, helpful despite a tendency to gush over the book's persons and events, correctly point out in their introduction that professionals and students in the fields of theology, medicine, public health, anthropology, economics, political science, philosophy, and community development would benefit from reading the volume. This book's greatest strength is the example it sets, showing how two scholars developed a virtuous cycle of dialogue between sound theory and effective practice that yields lasting, concrete results for the poor. The reader is left hoping that persons in other fields who are inspired by theology in the same way that Farmer was and still is can develop similar dialogues with theologians as critically engaged with the world as Gutiérrez.