QUICK DELIVERY
Swift dispatch
Defend the Realm The Authorized Histo...
Brief Summary
An unprecedented publishing event: to mark the centenary of its foundation, the British Security Service, MI5, has for the first time opened its archives to an independent historian. The book reveals the precise role of the Security Service in twentieth-century British history, from its foundation by Captain Kell of the British Army in October 1909, through two world wars, up to and including its present roles in counterespionage and counterterrorism.
The book describes how MI5 has been managed, what its relationship has been with government, where it has triumphed, and where it has failed. In all of this no restriction has been placed on the judgments made by the author.
Defend the Realm also adds significantly to our knowledge of many celebrated events and notorious individuals and definitively lays to rest a number of persistent myths. Above all, it shows the place of this previously extremely secretive organization within the United Kingdom. Few books could make such an immediate and extraordinary increase to our understanding of British history over the past century.
ISBN:9780307263636
Author:Christopher Andrew
The Rise and Fall of the British Empire
Brief Summary
Great Britain's geopolitical role has undergone many changes over the last four centuries. Once a maritime superpower and ruler of half the world, Britain now occupies an isolated position as an economically fragile island often at odds with her European neighbors.
Lawrence James has written a comprehensive, perceptive and insightful history of the British Empire.
Spanning the years from 1600 to the present day, this critically acclaimed book combines detailed scholarship with readable popular history.
ISBN:9780312169855
Author:Lawrence James
Kissinger The Idealist 1923-1968 by N...
The definitive biography of Henry Kissinger, based on unprecedented access to his private papers
No American statesman has been as revered or as reviled as Henry Kissinger. Once hailed as "Super K”—the "indispensable man” whose advice has been sought by every president from Kennedy to Obama—he has also been hounded by conspiracy theorists, scouring his every "telcon” for evidence of Machiavellian malfeasance.
Yet as Niall Ferguson shows in this magisterial two-volume biography, drawing not only on Kissinger’s hitherto closed private papers but also on documents from more than a hundred archives around the world, the idea of Kissinger as the ruthless arch-realist is based on a profound misunderstanding.
The first half of Kissinger’s life is usually skimmed over as a quintessential tale of American ascent: the Jewish refugee from Hitler’s Germany who made it to the White House. But in this first of two volumes, Ferguson shows that what Kissinger achieved before his appointment as Richard Nixon’s national security adviser was astonishing in its own right. Toiling as a teenager in a New York factory, he studied indefatigably at night.
He was drafted into the U.S. infantry and saw action at the Battle of the Bulge—as well as the liberation of a concentration camp—but ended his army career interrogating Nazis.
It was at Harvard that Kissinger found his vocation. Having immersed himself in the philosophy of Kant and the diplomacy of Metternich, he shot to celebrity by arguing for "limited nuclear war.” Nelson Rockefeller hired him. Kennedy called him to Camelot. Yet Kissinger’s rise was anything but irresistible. Dogged by press gaffes and disappointed by "Rocky,” Kissinger seemed stuck—until a trip to Vietnam changed everything.
The Idealist is the story of one of the most important strategic thinkers America has ever produced. It is also a political Bildungsroman, explaining how "Dr. Strangelove” ended up as consigliore to a politician he had always abhorred. Like Ferguson’s classic two-volume history of the House of Rothschild, Kissinger sheds dazzling new light on an entire era. The essential account of an extraordinary life, it recasts the Cold War world.
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
This is Kazuo Ishiguro's profoundly compelling portrait of Stevens, the perfect butler, and of his fading, insular world in post-World War II England. Stevens, at the end of three decades of service at Darlington Hall, spending a day on a country drive, embarks as well on a journey through the past in an effort to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving the "great gentleman," Lord Darlington.
But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington's "greatness," and much graver doubts about the nature of his own life.
White Tears by Hari Kunzru
Brief Summary
A feverish new tale from the bestselling author of The Impressionist: two ambitious young musicians are drawn into a dark underworld, haunted by the ghosts of a repressive past
Two twenty-something New Yorkers: Seth, awkward and shy, and Carter, the trust fund hipster. They have one thing in common: an obsession with music. Rising fast on the New York producing scene, they stumble across an old blues song long forgotten by history -- and everything starts to unravel. Carter is drawn far down a path that allows no return, and Seth has no choice but to follow his friend into the darkness.
Trapped in a game they don't understand, Hari Kunzru's characters move unsteadily across the chessboard, caught between black and white, performer and audience, righteous and forsaken. But we have been here before, oh so many times over, and the game always ends the same way.
Electrifying, subversive and wildly original, White Tears is a ghost story and a love story, a story about lost innocence and historical guilt.
This unmissable novel penetrates the heart of a nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge and exploitation, and holding a mirror up to the true nature of America today.
ISBN:9780451493699
Author:Hari Kunzru
The Nine Inside the Secret World of t...
Brief Summary
In The Nine, acclaimed journalist Jeffrey Toobin takes us into the chambers of the most important—and secret—legal body in our country, the Supreme Court, revealing the complex dynamic among the nine people who decide the law of the land.
An institution at a moment of transition, the Court now stands at a crucial point, with major changes in store on such issues as abortion, civil rights, and church-state relations.
Based on exclusive interviews with the justices and with a keen sense of the Court’s history and the trajectory of its future, Jeffrey Toobin creates in The Nine a riveting story of one of the most important forces in American life today.
ISBN:9780385516402
Author:Jeffrey Toobin
Happiness by Aminatta Forna
London. A fox makes its way across Waterloo Bridge. The distraction causes two pedestrians to collide--Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes, and Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist there to deliver a keynote speech. From this chance encounter, Aminatta Forna's unerring powers of observation show how in the midst of the rush of a great city lie numerous moments of connection.
Attila has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma, as he has done many times before; and to contact the daughter of friends, his "niece" who hasn't called home in a while. Ama has been swept up in an immigration crackdown, and now her young son Tano is missing.
When, by chance, Attila runs into Jean again, she mobilizes the network of rubbish men she uses as volunteer fox spotters. Security guards, hotel doormen, traffic wardens--mainly West African immigrants who work the myriad streets of London--come together to help. As the search for Tano continues, a deepening friendship between Attila and Jean unfolds.
Meanwhile a consulting case causes Attila to question the impact of his own ideas on trauma, the values of the society he finds himself in, and a grief of his own. In this delicate tale of love and loss, of cruelty and kindness, Forna asks us to consider the interconnectedness of lives, our co-existence with one another and all living creatures, and the true nature of happiness.
Sweet Medicine by Panashe Chigumadzi
Brief Summary
Sweet Medicine is the story of Tsitsi, a young woman who compromises the values of her Catholic upbringing to find romantic and economic security through otherworldly means.
The story takes place in Harare at the height of Zimbabwe’s economic woes in 2008.
The book is a thorough and evocative attempt at grappling with a variety of important issues in the postcolonial context: tradition and modernity; feminism and patriarchy; spiritual and political freedoms and responsibilities; poverty and desperation; and wealth and abundance.
ISBN:9781928337126
Author:Panashe Chigumadzi
The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
Brief Summary
Afghan-American Nadia Hashimi's literary debut novel, The Pearl that Broke Its Shell is a searing tale of powerlessness, fate, and the freedom to control one's own fate that combines the cultural flavor and emotional resonance of the works of Khaled Hosseini, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Lisa See.
In Kabul, 2007, with a drug-addicted father and no brothers, Rahima and her sisters can only sporadically attend school, and can rarely leave the house. Their only hope lies in the ancient custom of bacha posh, which allows young Rahima to dress and be treated as a boy until she is of marriageable age. As a son, she can attend school, go to the market, and chaperone her older sisters.
But Rahima is not the first in her family to adopt this unusual custom. A century earlier, her great-aunt, Shekiba, left orphaned by an epidemic, saved herself and built a new life the same way.
Crisscrossing in time, The Pearl the Broke Its Shell interweaves the tales of these two women separated by a century who share similar destinies. But what will happen once Rahima is of marriageable age? Will Shekiba always live as a man? And if Rahima cannot adapt to life as a bride, how will she survive?
ISBN:9780062244758
Author:Nadia Hashimi
Psycho Cybernetics A New Way to Get M...
Positive wisdom and helpful insights on how to be a successful person.
Happiness and success are habits. So are failure and misery. But negative habits can be changed--and Psycho-Cybernetics shows you how!
This is your personal audio guide to the amazing power of Psycho-Cybernetics--a program based on one of the world’s classic self-help books, a multimillion-copy bestseller proven effective by readers worldwide. Presenting positive attitude as a means for change, Maltz s teaching has the ring of common sense.
Psycho-Cybernetics-is the original text that defined the mind/body connection the concept that paved the way for most of today s personal empowerment programs. Turn crises into creative opportunities, dehypnotize yourself from false beliefs, and celebrate new freedom from fear and guilt.
Testimonials and stories are interspersed with advice from Maltz, as well as techniques for relaxation and visualization. Dr. Maxwell Maltz teaches you his techniques of emotional surgery --the path to a dynamic new self-image and self-esteem and to achieving the success and happiness you deserve.
Refilwe by Zukiswa Wanner
Brief Summary
A take on the traditional German tale Rapunzel in a Southern African setting.
Zukiswa Wanner brings young readers a retelling of the classic fairy tale, Rapunzel, with a uniquely South African twist. Refilweis the story of the dreadlocked beauty who is stuck in a cave on top of a mountain awaiting her prince, Tumi.
This take on the classic tale will have the children chanting, "Refilwe, Refilwe let down your locks . . . So I can climb the scraggy rocks!” Based on the original version but reimagined for African children, the tale is enriched with magical illustrations by Tamsin Hinrichsen that will keep all children entranced and foster in them a love of reading.
ISBN:9781431400980
Author:Zukiswa Wanner
Conscience of a Conservative A Reject...
Brief Summary
In a bold act of conscience, Republican Senator Jeff Flake takes his party to task for embracing nationalism, populism, xenophobia, and the anomalous Trump presidency. The book is an urgent call for a return to bedrock conservative principle and a cry to once again put country before party.
Dear Reader,
I am a conservative.
I believe that there are limits to what government can and should do, that there are some problems that government cannot solve, and that human initiative is best when left unfettered, free from government interference or coercion. I believe that these ideas, tested by time, offer the most freedom and best outcomes in the lives of the most people.
But today, the American conservative movement has lost its way. Given the state of our politics, it is no exaggeration to say that this is an urgent matter.
The Republican Party used to play to a broader audience, one that demanded that we accomplish something. But in this era of dysfunction, our primary accomplishment has been constructing the argument that we’re not to blame. We have decided that it is better to build and maintain a majority by using the levers of power rather than the art of persuasion and the battle of ideas. We’ve decided that putting party over country is okay. There are many on both sides of the aisle who think this a good model on which to build a political career—destroying, not building.
And all the while, our country burns, our institutions are undermined, and our values are compromised. We have become so estranged from our principles that we no longer know what principle is.
America is not just a collection of transactions. America is also a collection of ideas and values. And these are our values. These are our principles. They are not subject to change, owing to political fashion or cult of personality. I believe that we desperately need to get back to the rigorous, fact-based arguments that made us conservatives in the first place. We need to realize that the stakes are simply too high to remain silent and fall in line.
That is why I have written this book and am taking this stand.
—Jeff Flake
ISBN:9780399592911
Author:Jeff Flake
Salt by Nayyirah Waheed
Brief Summary
Salt. Is a journey through warmth and sharpness? This collection of poetry explores the realities of multiple identities, language, diasporic life & pain, the self, community, healing, celebration, and love.
This was one of the most important poetry collection I’ve read to date. In the short amount of pages that I got to read, I felt like I got to know both myself and the author so well.
Nayyirah Waheed captivated me from start to finish.
ISBN:9781492238287
Author:Nayyirah Waheed
The Dying Sahara US Imperialism and T...
Brief Summary
In The Dark Sahara (Pluto, 2009), Jeremy Keenan exposed the collusion between the US and Algeria in fabricating terrorism to justify a new ‘Saharan front’ in Washington’s War on Terror. Now, in The Dying Sahara, he reveals how the designation of the region as a ‘Terror Zone’ has destroyed the lives and livelihoods of thousands of innocent people.
Beginning in 2004, with what local people called the US ‘invasion’ of the Sahel, The Dying Sahara shows how repressive, authoritarian regimes - cashing in on US terrorism ‘rents’ - provoked Tuareg rebellions in both Niger and Mali. Further, he argues that US activity has unleashed a new, narco-trafficking branch of Al-Qaeda.
Keenan's chillingly detailed research shows that the US and its new combatant African command (AFRICOM) have created instability in a region the size of Western Europe.
ISBN:9780745329611
Author:Jeremy Keenan
The Gardens of Light by Amin Maalouf
Brief Summary
This is the story of Mani, a forgotten figure, but whose name is yet, paradoxically, on everyone's lips.
When using the words "Manichean" or "Manichaeism" one rarely thinks Mani, painter, doctor and Eastern philosopher of the third century, called "the Buddha of Light" by the Chinese and "the apostle of Jesus" by the Egyptians.
His tolerant and humanist philosophy wanted to reconcile the religions of his time. It earned him persecution, torment and hatred...
ISBN:9781566562485
Author:Amin Maalouf
The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr So...
The Gulag Archipelago is Solzhenitsyn's masterwork, a vast canvas of camps, prisons, transit centres and secret police, of informers and spies and interrogators and also of heroism, a Stalinist anti-world at the heart of the Soviet Union where the key to survival lay not in hope but in despair.
The work is based on the testimony of some two hundred survivors, and on the recollection of Solzhenitsyn's own eleven years in labor camps and exile. It is both a thoroughly researched document and a feat of literary and imaginative power.
This edition has been abridged into one volume at the author's wish and with his full co-operation.
The Greatest The Quest for Sporting P...
Brief Summary
What can Roger Federer teach us about the secret of longevity?
What do the All Blacks have in common with improvised jazz musicians?
What can cognitive neuroscientists tell us about what happens to the brains of sportspeople when they perform? And why did Johan Cruyff believe that beauty was more important than winning?
Matthew Syed, the 'Sports Journalist of the Year 2016', answers these questions and more in a fascinating, wide-ranging and provocative book about the mental game of sport.
How do we become the best that we can be, as individuals, teams and as organisations? Sport, with its innate sense of drama, its competitive edge, its psychological pressures, its sense of morality and its illusive quest for perfection, provides the answers.
ISBN:9781473653658
Author:Matthew Syed
This Side of Paradise
Brief Summary
This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semiautobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame.
Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the Jazz Age, based on Fitzgerald's original manuscript.
In this definitive text, This Side of Paradise captures the rhythms and romance of Fitzgerald's youth and offers a poignant portrait of the "Lost Generation."
ISBN:9780684843780
Author:F. Scott Fitzgerald
Gandhi The Agony of Arrival The South...
Brief Summary
Gandhi, an inspiration and a despair to all who approached him, has been subjected to MORE analysis than any other person in contemporary history. And yet something is missing in the puzzle that Gandhi was and is.
This volume is one more attempt to understand and to explain him by laying a little more emphasis on the societal factors and the situations that shaped him and structured his personality during his formative years in England and South Africa. This by no means is an easy task. Gandhi was a complex personality. Moreover, as a continuously evolving phenomenon, he underwent several startling changes in his habits, views, and approaches to life.
He therefore cannot be evaluated out of the time frame that was in existence at the time we talk about. Also, Gandhi has suffered a lot by the process of deification that started with his death or even before it. Much that is written about him is sheer hagiography with a few pieces of demonology too. Gandhi is too valuable a piece of humanity to be lost to history. We must strive to brush off the cobwebs gathering around him and portray him as the simple yet stupendous figure he was.
ISBN:9788129108357
Author:Nagindas Sanghavi
Seize the Day Living on Purpose and M...
Brief Summary
Today is no ordinary day. You may perform simple routines, feel uninspired, or lack the excitement of hope. But today could be the most important one of your life--depending on how you choose to spend it.
Joyce Meyer, #1 New York Times bestselling author, encourages you not to waste another minute. There is something special, valuable waiting for you to discover in each day. And when you spend time with God daily, asking Him to help you find it, you'll unlock the wonderful purpose He has in store for you. When you commit to letting God direct you, instead of resting passively in your own disappointments, you'll be open to receive greater happiness and blessings than you ever thought possible.
All you need is the right encouragement. With over four decades of experience helping others find fulfillment, Joyce shares key biblical insights and personal stories that will help you make the most of this moment and SEIZE THE DAY!
ISBN:9781455559909
Author:Joyce Meyer
