Other books that might interest you

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  The End of America? - A Guide to...

  Allan Friedman

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  America was the shining city on a hill. It was the country at the forefront of the world democratic order, the global policeman, the might of its military matched only by the depth of its financial reserves. America was the one the world listened to, whether it wanted to or not. So, what happened?
  Well, a lot of things. In this searing account, Alan Friedman shows how, from the disastrous Vietnam War to Barack Obama's bungled response to the Arab Spring, American intervention has ceased to be the decisive action it once was. And now, with the rise of China and Russia, coupled with America's prostration of itself following the election of Donald Trump, the decline of its authority is only hastening.
  We move now, Friedman argues, into the New World Disorder. In this dangerous and unstable world, the Washington-enforced liberal order is receding, and a new set of alliances and anxieties are in ascendence. What is America's place in this? Which powers are going to emerge as the leaders? Will the European Union count at all? One thing is for sure: the effects of the New World Disorder will challenge our Western values to breaking point.

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  Putin's Russia - Life in a...

  Anna Politkovskaya

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  A searing portrait of a country in disarray and of the man at its helm, from "the bravest of Russian journalists" (The New York Times)Hailed as "a lone voice crying out in a moral wilderness" (New Statesman), Anna Politkovskaya made her name with her fearless reporting on the war in Chechnya. Here, she turned her steely gaze on the multiple threats to Russian stability, among them Vladimir Putin himself.Rich with characters and poignant accounts, Putin's Russia depicts a far-reaching state of decay. Politkovskaya describes an army in which soldiers die from malnutrition, parents must pay bribes to recover their dead sons' bodies, and conscripts are even hired out as slaves. She exposes rampant corruption in business, government, and the judiciary, where everything from store permits to bus routes to court appointments is for sale. And she offers a scathing condemnation of the war in Chechnya, where kidnappings, extra-judicial killings, rape, and torture beget terrorism rather than fighting it. Finally, Politkovskaya denounces both Putin, for stifling civil liberties as he pushes the country back to a Soviet-style dictatorship, and the West, for its unqualified embrace of the Russian leader.Sounding an urgent alarm, Putin's Russia is a gripping portrayal of a country in crisis and the testament of a great and intrepid reporter, who received death threats and survived assassination attempts for her scathing criticism of the Kremlin. Tragically, on October 7, 2006, Politkovskaya was shot and found dead in an elevator in her Moscow apartment building. After several years of investigations, five men were imprisoned for her murder.

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  More Foul Deeds & Suspicious...

  Kate Taylor

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  A historic account of the Northern England city’s crimes, including misdeeds that shed light on past ways of life—from death by neglect to police killings.   How the body of a Wakefield murder victim was exhibited for a fee in 1853, the odd story of a Normanton miner attacked by a prosperous Crofton gentleman in 1875, the tragic death of a twenty-one-year old woman on what should have been her wedding day in 1909, and the case of the Sandal dental lecturer who killed his adopted daughter in 1966 are among the many foul deeds recounted in More Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Wakefield.   In a companion volume to Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Wakefield (2001), Kate Taylor has assembled more than fifty further accounts of horrific deaths in or near Wakefield. Some killings reflect the tensions and resentment of domestic life but there are mysteries too like the case of a man found dead in 1860 in a shallow beck with no marks of violence on him. In an incident in Horbury involving the death of a baby in 1849 it was the assistant constable pursuing the inquiries who died. The book shows something of the cultural context that can promote murder—the stigma of illegitimacy in the past and the more recent risks of glue sniffing and the appalling bullying of immigrants. Take a journey into the darker and unknown side of your area as you read More Foul Deeds and Suspicious Deaths in Wakefield.

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  Romantic Things - A Tree A Rock...

  Mary Jacobs

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  Our thoughts are shaped as much by what things make of us as by what we make of them. Lyric poetry is especially concerned with things and their relationship to thought, sense, and understanding. In Romantic Things, Mary Jacobus explores the world of objects and phenomena in nature as expressed in Romantic poetry alongside the theme of sentience and sensory deprivation in literature and art. Jacobus discusses objects and attributes that test our perceptions and preoccupy both Romantic poetry and modern philosophy. John Clare, John Constable, Rainer Maria Rilke, W. G. Sebald, and Gerhard Richter make appearances around the central figure of William Wordsworth as Jacobus explores trees, rocks, clouds, breath, sleep, deafness, and blindness in their work. While she thinks through these things, she is assisted by the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, and Jean-Luc Nancy. Helping us think more deeply about things that are at once visible and invisible, seen and unseen, felt and unfeeling, Romantic Things opens our eyes to what has been previously overlooked in lyric and Romantic poetry.

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  Evolution Is Wrong - A Radical...

  Erich von Däniken

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  A Fascinating Exploration on Why the Darwinists’ Theory No Longer Explains Everything 
  There was once a set of ideas called the theory of evolution, conceived by clever people and confirmed by countless scientists. Then people discovered the electron microscope. This made it possible to make the molecules within the cell visible, and suddenly questions about evolution arose that were not possible before. Which force actually bundles the atoms in the right order? What moves the molecular chains into the correct position? How did the first living unit within the cell actually come about? How does inheritance work, how does information pass on to the next generation? Did humans descend only and exclusively from primates—as Charles Darwin and countless other great minds assumed—or did additional “engines” intervene in evolution?  
  Today it is clear: countless questions can no longer be answered with the previous theory of evolution. There is a form of life called “Blob” (Physarum polycephalum). The “thing” has neither eyes nor ears, neither a mouth nor a nose or even a brain. Nevertheless, it takes in food, overcomes obstacles by the shortest route and exchanges information with other “blobs.” The “blob” contradicts any evolutionary thought that one develops from the other. Or the “gastric-brooding frogs” (Rheobatrachus) found in Australia. They hatch their young in the stomach. Impossible in a slow, evolutionary process.  
  Everywhere there are characteristics of animals that do not want to fit into the theory of evolution anywhere. And man? Are we really the most adapted life-form on this planet? Today, more and more scientists who contradict the previous theory of evolution speak out. The theory fits the changes within the species, but it can no longer be reconciled with the inner workings of the cell. Some other influence that has so far escaped us is affecting evolution. It is called “Intelligent Design.” Intelligent planning is suspected behind this. Anyone or anything—a spirit of the universe? Aliens?—could be behind this planning.  
  Erich von Däniken uses countless examples to demonstrate the impossibility of the previous evolutionary idea. He quotes scientists who argue against the previous teaching, but also those who defend it. Unfortunately, established science still refuses to look at discrepancies and holes in the theory of evolution, even though it is quite obvious that there is more going on with regard to the development of all species, as well as human culture, than could be explained by the theory of evolution alone.

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  Elizabethan Lover - Elizabethan...

  Barbara Cartland

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  Having sailed with Sir Francis Drake, swashbuckling privateer Rodney Hawkhurst yearns for a galleon of his own with which to plunder the Spanish Main in the name of Queen Elizabeth. Seeking investment from Sir Harry Gillingham, he has a fleeting encounter with an elfin, tomboyish golden-red-haired beauty ? Sir Harry?s youngest daughter Lizbeth ? and is bewitched by her limpid green eyes. Yet it is fair and golden-haired elder sister Phillida with whom he first falls in love... Granted his finances on the condition that Sir Harry?s weak, possibly even traitorous son sails with him in the hope that the mission will make him a man, Rodney embarks on a voyage of blood, honour and glory in which he gains great riches but loses his heart, not once, but twice. The risks are great but so are the rewards: wealth beyond compare and, as Rodney finally discovers, a greater, deeper, more passionate love than he ever imagined possible.

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