Other books that might interest you

• 

  William Jones: The March on...

  PBS NewsHour

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Historian William P. Jones joins Gwen Ifill to offer an overview of how the March on Washington came to be, why President Kennedy feared it would cause negative aftermath and what roles women of color played on that historic day. Their discussion is one a series of conversations looking back at the legacy of August 28, 1963.

  Show book

• 

  Summary of Sam Quinones’s The...

  Falcon Press

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Buy now to get the main key ideas from Sam Quinones’s The Least of Us 
    
  Sam Quinones’s The Least of Us (2021) is an in-depth analysis of drug use and addiction in America, and how it has been exacerbated by Mexican smugglers, drug traffickers, and pharmaceutical companies. Quinones chronicles the American opioid epidemic and explores the far-reaching damage generated by the meth and fentanyl crises. This follow-up to his bestseller Dreamland is a powerful combination of scientific research and new insights into the reality of drug use.  
  From real-life experiences of drug victims and addicts, Quinones tells stories of pain, weakness, and wreckage. He also reveals how food chains and international corporations indirectly use the language of drugs to target consumers and satisfy their cravings. 
   

  Show book

• 

  Battle on the Lomba 1987 - A...

  David Mannall

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  A South African national serviceman recounts becoming a soldier and an ensuing David-and-Goliath face-off against Angolan armed forces in 1987. 
   
  The climactic death-throes of Soviet Communism during the 1980s included a last-gasp attempt at strategic franchise expansion in southern Africa. Channeled through Castro’s Cuba, oil-rich Angolan armed forces (FAPLA) received billions of dollars of advanced weaponry and thousands of armored vehicles. Their intent: to eradicate the US-backed Angolan opposition (UNITA), then push southwards into South Africa’s protectorate SWA/Namibia, ostensibly as liberators. 
   
  1985 saw the first large-scale mechanized offensive in southern African history. Russian Generals planned and oversaw the offensive but didn’t account for the tenacity of UNITA (supported by the South African Defense Forces, SADF) or the rainy season. The ‘85 offensive floundered in the mud, and FAPLA returned to their capital Luanda. The South Africans stood down, confident their “covert” support for UNITA had demonstrated the folly of prosecuting war so far from home against Africa’s military Superpower. However, they were mistaken. Fidel and FAPLA immediately redoubled their efforts, strengthening fifteen battalions with even more Soviet hardware while Russian and Cuban specialists oversaw troop training. 
   
  As Cuban and Angolan fighter pilots honed their skills over the skies of Northern Angola, David Mannall, a normal seventeen-year-old kid completing high school, was preparing for two years of compulsory military service before beginning Tertiary education. Through a series of fateful twists, he found himself leading soldiers in several full-scale armored clashes, including the largest and most decisive battle on African soil since World War II. 
   
  This is a David and Goliath story that has never been truthfully told. The author reveals how Charlie Squadron, comprising just twelve 90mm AFVs crewed by thirty-six national servicemen, as part of the elite sixty-one Mechanized Battalion, engaged and effectively annihilated the giant FAPLA 47th Armored Brigade in one day—3 October 1987. Their 90mm cannons were never designed as tank-killers, but any assurances that it would never be used against heavy armor were left in the classroom during the three-month operation and never more starkly than the decisive “Battle on The Lomba River.” The Communist-backed offensive died that day along with hundreds of opposition fighters. 
   
  47th Brigade survivors abandoned their remaining equipment, eventually joining the 59th Brigade in what became a full-scale retreat of over ten thousand soldiers to Cuito Cuanevale. The myth perpetuated by post-apartheid politicians goes something like this: “The SADF force that destroyed 47th Brigade on 3 October numbered 6,000 men and that all the hard yards were run by the long-suffering UNITA!” The inconvenient truth is that there were just 36 South African boys on the frontline that day, but it is also true to say they would never have achieved such a stunning victory without the support of many more. This is their story.

  Show book

• 

  Restoring Justice - The Speeches...

  Edward H. Levi

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In the wake of Watergate, Gerald Ford appointed eminent lawyer and scholar Edward H. Levi to the post of attorney general—and thus gave him the onerous task of restoring legitimacy to a discredited Department of Justice. Levi was famously fair-minded and free of political baggage, and his inspired addresses during this tumultuous time were critical to rebuilding national trust. They reassured a tense and troubled nation that the Department of Justice would act in accordance with the principles underlying its name, operating as a nonpartisan organization under the strict rule of law.For Restoring Justice, Jack Fuller has carefully chosen from among Levi’s speeches a selection that sets out the attorney general’s view of the considerable challenges he faced: restoring public confidence through discussion and acts of justice, combating the corrosive skepticism of the time, and ensuring that the executive branch would behave judicially. Also included are addresses and Congressional testimonies that speak to issues that were hotly debated at the time, including electronic surveillance, executive privilege, separation of powers, antitrust enforcement, and the guidelines governing the FBI—many of which remain relevant today.                    Serving at an almost unprecedentedly difficult time, Levi was among the most admired attorney generals of the modern era. Published here for the first time, the speeches in Restoring Justice offer a superb sense of the man and his work.

  Show book

• 

  Hopes and Prospects

  Noam Chomsky

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “Chomsky’s gritty, politically charged essays redefine the nature and practice of democracy in an increasingly unsteady world climate” (Foreword Reviews). In this urgent book, Noam Chomsky surveys the dangers and prospects of our early twenty-first century. Exploring challenges such as the growing gap between North and South, American exceptionalism (including under Pres. Barack Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US-Israeli assault on Gaza, and the recent financial bailouts, he also sees hope for the future and a way to move forward—in the revival of indigenous cultures and languages and in the global solidarity movements that suggest “real progress toward freedom and justice.”  Hopes and Prospects is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the primary challenges still facing the human race.   “A dazzling, informative, arresting piece of work . . . incredibly timely and incredibly thorough, reserving safe ground for no-one and exploring the challenges and problems facing us in today’s changing world.” —Seattle PI   “This is a classic Chomsky work: a bonfire of myths and lies, sophistries and delusions. Noam Chomsky is an enduring inspiration all over the world—to millions, I suspect—for the simple reason that he is a truth-teller on an epic scale. I salute him.” —John Pilger, journalist, writer, and filmmaker   “In dissecting the rhetoric and logic of American empire and class domination, at home and abroad, Chomsky continues a longstanding and crucial work of elucidation and activism . . . the writing remains unswervingly rational and principled throughout, and lends bracing impetus to the real alternatives before us.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  Show book

• 

  Z Generation - Into the Heart of...

  Ian Garner

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  How did Vladimir Putin galvanize the Russian people to back his genocidal war in Ukraine, and why are so many of them willing to embrace fascism? This vivid, on-the-ground narrative reveals how Russia's fascist generation came into being—and the dark future that awaits the country if that hold cannot be broken.Wartime Russia is drowning in fascist symbols. Zealous patriots attack journalists, opposition activists, and anyone suspected of betraying the motherland. Russians are urged to join the cause by hordes of online trolls and sleek videos of angry young men bellowing patriotic slogans. State television terrifies viewers with trumped up tales of anti-Russian conspiracies and genocidal yearnings. Child soldiers proudly parade across Red Square. This is Russia in the 2020s: a land of performative rage and nationalist untruth, where play-acting, pretense, and broken promises are a way of life. But in a world where pretense has become the norm, a terrifying, apocalyptic mindset is seizing the Russians of tomorrow.As enrapturing as it is terrifying, Z Generation reveals how Russia ended up where it is today, and where its young people are headed: a fascist generation more zealous, violent, and ideological than anything the country has seen before.

  Show book