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The Shackled Continent Africas Past P...
Brief Summary
Africa is the only continent to have grown poorer over the last three decades. Why? The Shackled Continent, Robert Guest's fascinating first book, seeks to diagnose the sickness that continues to hobble Africa's development. Using reportage, first-hand experience and economic insight, Robert Guest takes us to the roots of the problems.
Two fifths of African nations are at war, AIDS has lowered life expectancy to as young as forty years old and investment is almost impossible as houses that could be used as collateral do not formally belong to their owners.
Most shocking of all is the evidence that the billions of dollars of aid, given to Africa has had little perceptible effect on the poor The Shackled Continent offers, sometimes controversially, explanations for this state of affairs. In this magnificent and engaging book, Robert Guest provides an invigorating history and an inspired commentary on the enigma of modern Africa.
ISBN:9780330419727
Author:Robert Guest
All Quiet on the Western Front
Brief Summary
This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army of World War I.
These young men become enthusiastic soldiers, but their world of duty, culture, and progress breaks into pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.
Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the hatred that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another – if only he can come out of the war alive.
ISBN:9780449213940
Author:Erich Maria Remarque
The age of unreason
Brief Summary
In an era when change is constant, random, and, as Handy calls it, discontinuous, it is necessary to break out of old ways of thinking in order to use change to our advantage. Handy examines how dramatic changes are transforming business, education, and the nature of work.
We can see it in astounding new developments in technology, in the shift in demand from manual to cerebral skills, and in the virtual disappearance of lifelong, full-time jobs.
Handy maintains that discontinuous change requires discontinuous, upside-down thinking, and discusses the need for new kinds of organizations, new approaches to work, new types of schools, and new ideas about the nature of our society.
ISBN:9780875843018
Author:Charles B. Handy
The Airbnb Story
Brief Summary
The Airbnb Story: How Three Guys Disrupted an Industry, Made Billions of Dollars ... and Plenty of Enemies.
This is the remarkable behind-the-scenes story of the creation and growth of Airbnb, the online lodging platform that has become, in under a decade, the largest provider of accommodations in the world. At first just the wacky idea of cofounders Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb has disrupted the $500 billion hotel industry, and its $30 billion valuation is now larger than that of Hilton and close to that of Marriott.
Airbnb is beloved by the millions of members in its "host” community and the travelers they shelter every night. And yet, even as the company has blazed such an unexpected path, this is the first book solely dedicated to the phenomenon of Airbnb.
Fortune editor Leigh Gallagher explores the success of Airbnb along with the more controversial side of its story. Regulators want to curb its rapid expansion; hotel industry leader’s wrestle with the disruption it has caused them; and residents and customers alike struggle with the unintended consequences of opening up private homes for public consumption. This is also the first in depth study of Airbnb's leader, Brian Chesky, the quirky and curious young CEO, as he steers the company into new markets and increasingly uncharted waters.
ISBN:9780753545591
Author:Leigh Gallagher
Profit First Transform Your Business ...
Brief Summary
Conventional accounting uses the logical (albeit, flawed) formula: Sales - Expenses = Profit. The problem is, businesses are run by humans, and humans aren't always logical. Serial entrepreneur Mike Michalowicz has developed a behavioral approach to accounting to flip the formula: Sales - Profit = Expenses.
Just as the most effective weight loss strategy is to limit portions by using smaller plates, Michalowicz shows that by taking profit first and apportioning only what remains for expenses, entrepreneurs will transform their businesses from cash-eating monsters to profitable cash cows. Using Michalowicz's Profit First system, readers will learn that:
• Following 4 simple principles can simplify accounting and make it easier to manage a profitable business by looking at bank account balances.
• A small, profitable business can be worth much more than a large business surviving on its top line.
• Businesses that attain early and sustained profitability have a better shot at achieiving long-term growth.
With dozens of case studies, practical, step-by-step advice, and his signature sense of humor, Michalowicz has the game-changing roadmap for any entrepreneur to make money they always dreamed of."
ISBN:9780735214149
Author:Mike Michalowicz
The Age of Capital 1848-1875
Brief Summary
In the wake of the French Revolution & the Industrial Revolution, Europe underwent another revolution--this time a revolution of values.
The author examines the rise of industrial capitalism and the consolidation of bourgeois culture, exploring the effects of mounting concentration of wealth, population migrations, and the domination of European culture.
Integrating economics with political and intellectual developments, this account studies the cycles of boom & slump that characterize capitalist economies, of the victims & victors of the bourgeois ethos.
ISBN:9780679772545
Author:Eric Hobsbawm
Age of Iron
Brief Summary
In Cape Town, South Africa, an old woman is dying of cancer. A classics professor, Mrs. Curren has been opposed to the lies and brutality of apartheid all her life, but has lived insulated from its true horrors.
Now she is suddenly forced to come to terms with the iron-hearted rage that the system has wrought. In an extended letter addressed to her daughter, who has long since fled to America, Mrs. Curren recounts the strange events of her dying days. She witnesses the burning of a nearby black township and discovers the bullet-riddled body of her servant's son.
A teenage black activist hiding in her house is killed by security forces. And through it all, her only companion, the only person to whom she can confess her mounting anger and despair, is a homeless man, an alcoholic, who one day appears on her doorstep. Brilliantly crafted and resonant with metaphor, Age of Iron is "a superbly realized novel whose truths cut to the bone."
ISBN:9780140275650
Author:J.M. Coetzee
The African Origin of Civilization My...
"The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality” (1974) is a book by Cheikh Anta Diop, a Senegalese Egyptologist. It makes the case that both mankind and civilization started with black people. It argues that Ancient Egypt was largely Black African in race and culture during the first 2,000 years of its civilization.
Diop’s model goes like this:
1. Homo sapiens began in Africa and began as black people. It was as black people that they spread over Asia and Europe, taking the place of the Neanderthals.
2. The rise of different races: Over time black people in northern Eurasia became light-skinned and began to look like the people who live there today.
3. Between -3000 and -1500, the region stretching from North Africa through the South West Asia to India became civilized: Egypt, Canaan, Elam, Indus, etc. People were dark-skinned, like they still are today in Ethiopia and southern India. The Bible calls them the sons of Ham. The Greeks saw them as Ethiopians of one sort or other.
4. After -1500 this region has become whiter over time as wave after wave of light-skinned barbarians over thousands of years have come down from the north. In India people were separated into light- and dark-skinned castes. Elsewhere they have mixed more thoroughly.
5. Egyptian civilization spreads north of the Sahara to Western Europe by way of Greece and south of the Sahara to West Africa by way of Nubia.
Africas Agitators Militant Anti-Colon...
Brief Summary
Africa's 'Agitators': Militant Anti-Colonialism in Africa and the West, 1918-1939.
Recounts the opposition to British and French rule practiced by Africans living on the continent and by European anti-colonialists and members of Black Diaspora.
This book covers campaigns waged by an early incarnation of African National Congress and other groups in South Africa who fought against legal and other aspects of white minority rule.
ISBN:9780231700566
Author:Jonathan Derrick
Aesops Fables by Aesop
Aesop's Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of fables credited to Aesop (620-560 BC), a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece. Aesop's Fables have become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, usually involving anthropomorphic animals.
Many stories included in Aesop's Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom "sour grapes" was derived), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, are well-known throughout the world.
Acts of faith
Brief Summary
Philip Caputo’s tragic and epically ambitious new novel is set in Sudan, where war is a permanent condition. Into this desolate theater come aid workers, missionaries, and mercenaries of conscience whose courage and idealism sometimes coexist with treacherous moral blindness.
There’s the entrepreneurial American pilot who goes from flying food and medicine to smuggling arms, the Kenyan aid worker who can’t help seeing the tawdry underside of his enterprise, and the evangelical Christian who comes to Sudan to redeem slaves and falls in love with a charismatic rebel commander.
As their fates intersect and our understanding of their characters deepens, it becomes apparent that Acts of Faith is one of those rare novels that combine high moral seriousness with irresistible narrative wizardry.
ISBN:9780375725975
Author:Philip Caputo
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
Brief Summary
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali is a moving, passionate love story set amid the turmoil and terror of Rwanda’s genocide.
All manner of Kigali residents pass their time by the pool of the Mille-Collines hotel: aid workers, Rwandan bourgeoisie, expatriates, UN peacekeepers, prostitutes. Keeping a watchful eye is Bernard Valcourt, a jaded foreign journalist, but his closest attention is devoted to Gentille, a hotel waitress with the slender, elegant build of a Tutsi.
As they slip into an intense, improbable affair, the delicately balanced world around them–already devastated by AIDS–erupts in a Hutu-led genocide against the Tutsi people. Valcourt’s efforts to spirit Gentille to safety end in their separation. It will be months before he learns of his lover’s shocking fate.
ISBN:9781400034345
Author:Gil Courtemanche
A Moment of Weakness
Brief Summary
As children, Jade Conner and Tanner Eastman were best friends—until scandal drove them apart. Then, one golden summer, they find each other again. Through endless days they share their hearts and souls and dreams of forever. Then, in a moment of weakness, they make a decision that will tear them apart for nearly a decade.
In their own separate corners of the country, Jade and Tanner have become fighters for religious freedom. Now Jade’s unfaithful husband is determined to destroy her in a custody battle that will rock the nation and shake people’s understanding of faith and freedom.
Could Jade lose her only child because of her faith? Only one man can help her in her darkest hour. And only one old woman knows the secret about that summer and the truth that can set them all free.
ISBN:9781576736166
Author:Karen Kingsbury
A Bit of Difference
Brief Summary
At thirty-nine, Deola Bello, a Nigerian expatriate in London, is dissatisfied with being single and working overseas. Deola works as a financial reviewer for an international charity. When her job takes her back to Nigeria in time for her father’s five-year memorial service, she finds herself turning her scrutiny inward.
In Nigeria, Deola encounters changes in her family and in the urban landscape of her home, and new acquaintances who offer unexpected possibilities.
Deola’s journey is as much about evading others’ expectations to get to the heart of her frustration as it is about exposing the differences between foreign images of Africa and the realities of contemporary Nigerian life.
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ISBN:9781876756994
Author:Sefi Atta
The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie ...
Brief Summary
The enlightening memoir of the industrialist as famous for his philanthropy as for his fortune.
His good friend Mark Twain dubbed him "St. Andrew.” British Prime Minister William Gladstone called him an "example” for the wealthy. Such terms seldom apply to multimillionaires. But Andrew Carnegie was no run-of-the-mill steel magnate.
At age 13 and full of dreams, he sailed from his native Dunfermline, Scotland, to America. The story of his success begins with a $1.20-a-week job at a bobbin factory. By the end of his life, he had amassed an unprecedented fortune—and given away more than 90 percent of it for the good of mankind.
Here, for the first time in one volume, are two impressive works by Andrew Carnegie himself: his autobiography and "The Gospel of Wealth,” a groundbreaking manifesto on the duty of the wealthy to give back to society all of their fortunes. And he practiced what he preached, erecting 1,600 libraries across the country, founding Carnegie Mellon University, building Carnegie Hall, and performing countless other acts of philanthropy because, as Carnegie wrote, "The man who dies thus rich dies disgraced.”
ISBN:9780451530387
Author:Andrew Carnegie
50 Great Myths of Human Evolution Und...
Brief Summary
50 Great Myths of Human Evolution uses common misconceptions to explore basic theory and research in human evolution and strengthen critical thinking skills for lay readers and students.
• Examines intriguing—yet widely misunderstood—topics, from general ideas about evolution and human origins to the evolution of modern humans and recent trends in the field
• Describes what fossils, archaeology, and genetics can tell us about human origins
• Demonstrates the ways in which science adapts and changes over time to incorporate new evidence and better explanations
• Includes myths such as "Humans lived at the same time as dinosaurs;” "Lucy was so small because she was a child;” "Our ancestors have always made fire;” and "There is a strong relationship between brain size and intelligence”
• Comprised of stand-alone essays that are perfect for casual reading, as well as footnotes and references that allow readers to delve more deeply into topics
ISBN:9780470673928
Author:John H. Relethford
40001 Best Baby Names
Brief Summary
Nothing is more personal than a name and the naming of a baby is taken very seriously by all parents-to-be.
With an extensive, easy-to-use alphabetical listing of every boy's and girl's name imaginable, 40,001 Best Baby Names, unique among the plethora of baby name books on the market, also includes fun, individualized lists, such as: good names for race-car drivers, names that spawn nasty nicknames, names for children who are handsome or beautiful, nerd/dork/wallflower names, death row names, names for smart kids and much, much more! With 40,001 baby names to choose from, in an accessible, enjoyable format, 40,001 best Baby Names is the essential resource for all parents-to-be.
ISBN:9780091900007
Author:Diane Stafford
23 Things They Do not Tell You about ...
Thing 1: There is no such thing as free market.
Thing 4: The washing machine has changed the world more than the Internet.
Thing 5: Assume the worst about people, and you get the worst.
Thing 13: Making rich people richer doesn't make the rest of us richer.
If you've wondered how we did not see the economic collapse coming, Ha-Joon Chang knows the answer: We didn't ask what they didn't tell us about capitalism. This is a lighthearted book with a serious purpose: to question the assumptions behind the dogma and sheer hype that the dominant school of neoliberal economists-the apostles of the free market-have spun since the Age of Reagan.
Chang, the author of the international bestseller Bad Samaritans, is one of the world's most respected economists, a voice of sanity-and wit-in the tradition of John Kenneth Galbraith and Joseph Stiglitz. 23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism equips readers with an understanding of how global capitalism works-and doesn't. In his final chapter, "How to Rebuild the World," Chang offers a vision of how we can shape capitalism to humane ends, instead of becoming slaves of the market.
Ha-Joon Chang teaches in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge. His books include the bestselling Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. His Kicking Away the Ladder received the 2003 Myrdal Prize, and, in 2005, Chang was awarded the Leontief Prize for Advancing the Frontiers of Economic Thought.
Intentional Living Choosing a Life Th...
Brief Summary
We all have a longing to be significant. We want to make a contribution, to be a part of something noble and purposeful. But many people wrongly believe significance is unattainable. They worry that it's too big for them to achieve. That they have to have an amazing idea, be a certain age, have a lot of money, or be powerful or famous to make a real difference.
The good news is that none of those things is necessary for you to start to achieve significance and create a lasting legacy. You may not realize it, but they're really nothing more than excuses. The only thing you need to achieve significance is to be intentional. And to do that, all you need to do is start. You can't make an impact sitting still and doing nothing. Every major accomplishment that's ever been achieved started with a first step. Sometimes it's hard; other times it's easy, but no matter what, you have to do it if you want to get anywhere in life.
In INTENTIONAL LIVING, John Maxwell will help you take that first step, and the ones that follow on your personal path through a life that matters.
ISBN:9781455548170
Author:John C. Maxwell
The Ten Step Stress Solution Live Mor...
Brief Summary
Too busy to get everything done? Lie awake at night worrying and fretting? It is all too easy to feel out of control in the modern world. With so many demands on your time, you can feel overstretched and overburdened. However, there are easy ways to gain control and banish your worries for good.
This accessible book from Neil Shah of the Stress Management Society offers a simple 10-step plan with practical solutions for regaining control of your life. Find out how to:
• Manage your time—at work and at home
• Improve your concentration and motivation
• Regain your balance and lift your mood
• Get a good night’s sleep and stop worrying
ISBN:9780399166075
Author:Neil Shah