Exposes the shock doctors and offers information and connections that show how the shock doctors' beliefs dominate our world - and how this domination has been achieved. This book tells the tale of how a few are making a killing while more are getting killed.
This latest edition of 'Roget's Thesaurus' includes all the latest buzzwords and phrases from 'broadband' to 'mockney'. One new feature is the inclusion of panels in the text that list vocabulary groups, from cocktails to phobias, and 'quotation boxes' show the derivation of popular phrases and idioms.
Paris is the city of light and the city of darkness - a place of ceaseless revolution and reinvention that for two thousand years has drawn those with the highest ideals and the lowest morals to its teeming streets. This book features myriad citizens whose stories have shaped Paris.
National Book Award FinalistA Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times Book Review Best Book of the YearA gripping narrative that spans five decades, The Looming Tower explains in unprecedented detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of alQaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Lawrence Wright recreates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman alZawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John Oyes'>#8217;Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from alQaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is the definitive history of the long road to September 11.From the Trade Paperback edition.
Iran often appears in the media as a hostile and difficult country. From the time of the prophet Zoroaster, to the powerful ancient Persian Empires, to the revolution of 1979, the hostage crisis and president Mahmud Ahmadinejad - a controversial figure within as well as outside the country - this guide traces an account of Iran's past.
Eating Animals is a riveting exposé which presents the gut-wrenching truth about the price paid by the environment, the government, the Third World and the animals themselves in order to put meat on our tables more quickly and conveniently than ever before.
Interweaving a variety of monologues and balancing humour and suspense with informed rationalism, Eating Animals is as much a novelistic account of an intellectual journey as it is a fresh and open look at the ethical debate around meat-eating. Unlike most other books on the subject, Eating Animals also explores the possibilites for those who do eat meat to do so more responsibly, making this an important book not just for vegetarians, but for anyone who is concerned about the ramifications and significance of their chosen lifestyle.
'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay' - Oliver Goldsmith Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of shared purpose. But we have forgotten how to think about the life we live together: its goals and purposes. We are now not only post-ideological; we have become post-ethical. We have lost touch with the old questions that have defined politics since the Greeks: is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society? A better world? The social contract that defined postwar life in Europe and America - the guarantee of security, stability and fairness - is no longer assured; in fact, it's no longer part of collective conversation.
In this exceptional short book, Tony Judt reveals how we have arrived at our present dangerously confused moment and masterfully crystallizes our great unease, showing how we might yet think ourselves out of it. If we are to replace fear with confidence then we need a different story to tell, about state and society alike: a story that carries moral and political conviction. Providing that story is the purpose of this book.
'The Rule of Law' is a phrase much used but little examined. The idea of the rule of law as the foundation of modern states and civilisations has recently become even more talismanic than that of democracy, but what does it actually consist of?
In this brilliant short book, Britain's former senior law lord, and one of the world's most acute legal minds, examines what the idea actually means. He makes clear that the rule of law is not an arid legal doctrine but is the foundation of a fair and just society, is a guarantee of responsible government, is an important contribution to economic growth and offers the best means yet devised for securing peace and co-operation. He briefly examines the historical origins of the rule, and then advances eight conditions which capture its essence as understood in western democracies today. He also discusses the strains imposed on the rule of law by the threat and experience of international terrorism.
The book will be influential in many different fields and should become a key text for anyone interested in politics, society and the state of our world.
How did George Eliot's love life affect her prose? Why did Kafka write at three in the morning? In what ways is Barack Obama like Eliza Doolittle? Can you be over-dressed for the Oscars? What is Italian Feminism? If Roland Barthes killed the Author, can Nabokov revive him? What does 'soulful' mean? Is Date Movie the worst film ever made?
A collection of essays that brims over with personality and warmth, Changing My Mind is journalism at its most expansive, intelligent and funny - a gift to readers and writers both. Within its covers an essay is more than a column of opinions: it's a space in which to think freely.
Contains sixteen essays that represent the last pieces written by Susan Sontag in the years before her death in 2004. Reflecting on literature, photography and art, post-9/11 America and political activism, these essays encompass the themes that dominated Sontag's life and work.
Compiled by leading British lexicographers, this dictionary should prove useful at home and in the office. It offers comprehensive coverage of the English language and contains a variety of features, including usage notes and essays on the history of words such as "hypochondria" and "sideburns".
From Rwanda to Afghanistan, from Sudan to Iraq, this brilliantly written and at times blackly funny work of reportage shows how the humanitarian aid industry, the media and warmongers the world over are locked in a cycle of mutual support.
Drawing on her decades of first-hand experience, Linda Polman's gripping narrative introduces us to the key players in this twisted game, to the aid-workers and the warlords themselves. Among many others, there is the Bible-bashing one-man NGO who rescued two Sierra Leonean girls from life in an amputee camp - only to change his mind and try to send them back again; the director of the World Bank in Kabul who estimates that 35-40 per cent of all aid in Afghanistan is looted or lost; and the rebel soldier who explains that war does not mean fighting: 'W.A.R. means Waste All Resources. Destroy everything. Then you people will come and fix it.' War Games is an urgent and riveting account from the front lines of the humanitarian aid industry by one of the most intrepid and brilliantly incisive journalists of our times.
'Sean McMeekin has written a classic of First World War history ... This superb and original book is the reality behind Greenmantle' Norman Stone The Berlin-Baghdad Express explores one of the big, previously unresearched subjects of the First World War: the German bid for world power - and the destruction of the British Empire - through the harnessing of the Ottoman Empire.
McMeekin's book shows how incredibly high the stakes were in the Middle East - with the Germans in the tantalizing position of taking over the core of the British Empire via the extraordinary railway that would link Central Europe and the Persian Gulf. Germany sought the Ottoman Empire as an ally to create jihad against the British - whose Empire at the time was the largest Islamic power in the world. The Berlin-Baghdad Express is a fascinating account of western interference in the Middle East and its lamentable results. It explains and brings to life a massive area of fighting, which in most other accounts is restricted to the disaster at Gallipoli and the British invasions of Iraq and Palestine.
Shows that finance is the foundation of all human progress and the lifeblood of history. From the cash injection that funded the Italian Renaissance to the stock market bubble that sparked the French Revolution, from the bonds that fuelled Britain's war effort to the Wall Street Crash, this title tells the story of boom and bust.
At a time when the United States exacts a greater power over the rest of the world, America's leading voice of dissent needs to be heard more than ever. This book examines the issues of our post-9/11 world, covering the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Bush presidency and the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
We are, to use a technical economic term, screwed. The cowboy capitalists had a party with everyone's money and now we're all paying for it. What went wrong? And will we learn our lesson - or just carry on as before, like celebrating surviving a heart attack with a packet of Rothmans?
If you want to know, but are the sort of person who finds it hard to tell the difference between a CDO a CDS an MBS and a toasted cheese sandwich, John Lanchester has mastered the finer points of finance so you don't have to. In Whoops! he explains, in language everyone can understand, what really happened - and what on earth we do next.
This book tells the story of one of the most astonishing dramas in Europe's history. In the summer of 1812 after years of uneasy peace, Napoleon, the master of almost the whole continent, marched into Russia with the largest army ever assembled, confident that he would sweep everything before him. Less than two years later the Russian army was itself marching into Paris and Napoleon's empire lay in ruins.
Using an array of new, rare and surprising sources, Dominic Lieven writes with great panache and insight to describe from the Russians' viewpoint how they went from retreat, defeat and the burning of Moscow to becoming the new liberators of Europe. He conveys the savagery and valour of the fighting (including such huge set-pieces as the Battle of Leipzig), the often tense diplomacy that held together the Allied coalition against Napoleon and the astonishing feats of supply which allowed the Russian army to cut its way across Europe.The consequences of these events could not have been more important: after a whole generation of fighting, Europe (except for the brief coda of Waterloo) was at peace and France's global pretensions at an end. But the great winners, Britain and Russia, now presented new nightmares for the rest of the world.
Much more than just battlefield history, Russia Against Napoleon is also the story of how Russia's home front was mobilised against Napoleon and how much the Russian people suffered in pursuit of victory. It is too the story of one of the most successful espionage operations in history. Ultimately this book shows, memorably and brilliantly, Russia embarking on its strange, central role in Europe's existence, as both threat and protector - a role that continues, in all its complexity, into our own lifetimes.
Rumours are as old as human history, but with the rise of the internet it's now possible to spread stories about anyone, anywhere, instantly.
In the 2008 US election many Americans believed Barack Obama was a Muslim. The conspiracy theory book 9/11: The Big Lie has become a bestseller. Hearsay has fuelled economic boom and bust - so much so that in many places it's now a crime to circulate false rumours about banks. Why do ordinary people accept rumours, even untrue, bizarre or damaging ones? Does it matter? And, if so, what should we do about it?
As Cass Sunstein shows in his brilliant analysis of the phenomenon, there are many different ways in which rumours are dispersed. He reveals how some people have pre-exisiting prejudices that make them particularly susceptible to certain falsehoods, but also why all of us (even the most sceptical) have a tipping point at which we will come to accept a rumour as true. He looks at why some groups, even different nations, believe different things (for example, many Germans think that drinking water after eating cherries is deadly), and he shows why some rumours spread faster than others.
Even if we don't realize it, the most open-minded among us are subject to extraordinary biases. This groundbreaking book will make us think harder about the information we are given, and could help us move towards a more open-minded and fair culture.
For those living outside Scandinavia, the Viking Age effectively began in 793 with an attack on the monastery at Lindisfarne, a characteristically violent harbinger of what was in store for Britain and much of Europe from the Vikings for the next 300 years, until the final destruction of the heathen temple to the Norse gods at Uppsala around 1090.
Robert Ferguson is a sure guide across what he calls 'the treacherous marches which divide legend from fact in Viking Age history'. His long familiarity with the literary culture of Scandinavia - the eddas, the poetry of the skalds and the sagas - is combined with the latest archaeological discoveries and the evidence of picture-stones, runes, ships and objects scattered all over northern Europe, to make the most convincing modern portrait of the Viking Age in any language. The Hammer and the Cross ranges from Scandinavia itself to Kievan Rus and Byzantium in the east, to Iceland, Greenland and the north American settlements in the west. Beyond its geographical boundaries the book takes us on a journey to a misty region inhabited by Hallfred the Troublesome Poet, Harald Bluetooth, Ragnar Hairy-Breeches, Ivar the Boneless and Eyvind the Plagiarist, in which literature, history and myth dissolve into one another.
Sergio Vieira de Mello - a humanitarian, peacemaker and state builder - was at centre of the most significant geopolitical crises. This title tells the story of this man who never stopped learning and of a perilous world whose ills are too big to ignore but too complex to manage quickly or cheaply.
To mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has opened its archives to an independent historian. The Defence of the Realm, the book which results, is an unprecedented publication, It reveals the precise role of the Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909 to root out 'the spies of the Kaiser' up to its present role in countering Islamic terrorism. It describes the distinctive ethos of MI5, how the organization has been managed, its relationship with the government, where it has triumphed and where it has failed. In all of this, no restriction has been placed on the judgements made by the author.
The book also casts new light on many events and periods in British history, showing for example that though well-placed sources MI5 was probably the pre-war department with the best understanding of Hitler's objectives, and had a remarkable willingness to speak truth to power; how it was so astonishingly successful in turning German agents during the Second World War; and that it had much greater roles than has hitherto been realized during the end of the Empire and in responding to the recurrent fears of successive governments (both Conservative and Labour) and or Cold War Communist subversion. It has new information about the Profumo affair and its aftermath, about the 'Magnificent Five' and about a range of formerly unconfirmed Soviet contacts. It reveals that though MI5 had a file on Harold Wilson it did not plot against him, and it describes what really happened during the failed IRA attack in Gibraltar in March 1988.
Forget everything you think you know about the making of the most powerful man on the planet. President Barack Obama's triumph was not inevitable: it was the end product of a brilliant, calculated, convention-defying political campaign. In a race that will be talked about for years to come, he faced down his rivals with ruthless focus and efficiency.
Race of a Lifetime is the gripping inside story of those thrilling months: from the meteoric rise of Obama and the collapsing House of Clinton to the erratic John McCain and the bewildering Sarah Palin.
Brimming with exclusive revelations, this compulsively readable book lays bare the characters of the candidates, warts and all; exposes the inner workings of their operations; and charts the true path to the White House. It's a tour de force: the sometimes shocking, often funny, and ultimately definitive account of the campaign of a lifetime.
Explores both the benefits and disadvantages of the developments in global communication. The author discusses the annoyance and dangers of BlackBerrys in meeting rooms, hands-free kits in conversation, and using a phone or iPod whilst driving.
