Re-returning to the Introduction

After completing the draft last summer, I Returned to the Introduction.But then my peer review committee told me I needed to get to the point at the start of the book. I have now incorporated the point-getting-to text and reworked the chapter once more (.docx .pdf).I revised the early part of the chapter, which motivates the book. Before, it referred to all the exciting microfinance investment deals in 2007 and 2008 and pointed out that we know much less about the social return to microfinance investment than the financial return. Boy did that seem out of date. Now it is about all the challenges microfinance has faced in the last two years, and the growing confusion about microfinance in the public mind. I sure hope the new version doesn't obsolesce as rapidly as the old.I rounded off this new description of microfinance's muddle with a bit about Vijay Mahajan's soul searching trip across India. I think this makes a nice metaphor for and transition into my description of my own intellectual journey, and resonates with the idea a bit later that my journey is a destination too. Like his, my journey involved listening to many voices.I also replaced the sad story in the opening, which was about a Compartamos borrower in Mexico, with one from the Tom Heinemann documentary. Now both the happy and the sad story are about Grameen borrowers in Bangladesh. I did this to avoid seeming to side with Yunus in his attacks on Compartamos ("Grameen good, Compartamos bad") because this is not the place to get into that debate, and to emphasize that even when focusing on one lender in one country, one can run into confusingly contradictory stories.As always, comments welcome. I'm sure it's still bumpy in a few places, but overall I think this is one of the best things I've ever written.