As the University of Washington prepared for the arrival of Dr. Paul Farmer, a global health doctor and the subject of the campus common book, Mountains Beyond Mountains (New York: Random House, 2003), a team of faculty, administrators, and community leaders promoted ideas of global citizenship both on and off the territorial boundaries of the campus. The book, selected for its resonance with issues of general interest to the campus (interdisciplinary approaches, student engagement, a new global health initiative, the power of ideas, the role of entrepreneurship, and the capacity for non-state actors in world politics to shape agendas), had acquired a following more like a social movement than an administrative initiative. Coffee shops adjoining the campus featured copies of the book, and honors students coordinated and invited faculty members to come to evening discussion sessions. As University of Washington Professor Jonathan Mayer commented, “I have seen this book change careers and change lives.”