Other books that might interest you

• 

  Operation Shakespeare - The True...

  John Shiffman

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  In Operation Shakespeare, investigative journalist John Shiffman traces a high-risk undercover operation launched by an elite undercover Homeland Security unit created to stop the Iranians, Russians, Chinese, Pakistanis, and North Koreans from acquiring sophisticated American-made electronics capable of guiding missiles, jamming radar, and triggering countless weapons-from wireless IEDs to nuclear bombs. The U.S. agents must outwit not only enemy brokers but also American manufacturers and global bankers who are too willing to put profit over national security.The three-year sting climaxes when the U.S. agents lure the Iranian broker to a former Soviet republic with the promise of American-made radar, fighter-jet, and missile components, then secretly drag him back to the United States, where he is held in secret for two years. The laptop the Iranian carries into the sting provides the CIA with a virtual road map to Tehran's clandestine effort to obtain U.S. military technology.

  Show book

• 

  The China Freedom Trap - My Life...

  Dolkun Isa

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  From the president of The World Uyghur Congress, a nominee by Canadian and Finish parliamentarians for the Nobel Peace Prize, 2023
  		 
  Dolkun Isa was declared to be a terrorist by the Chinese Communist Party. His crime? Advocating for basic human, civil and religious freedoms for the people of East Turkestan. The country was taken over by the forces of the Chinese Communist Party in 1949. This was primarily achieved through persuasion as opposed to an armed invasion. What the leaders signed up for and were promised are why seventy years later, the Uygur people have been the subject of international headlines. Why have peaceful peoples been abused, terrorized and systematically used for slave labour and even murdered in camps by the Chinese Communist Party?
  		 
  In The China Freedom Trap, Dolkun Isa details his experiences working as an Uyghur political figure in the West and the barriers he has faced due to China's growing influence on liberal institutions. He describes his co-founding of the World Uyghur Congress and the ways in which China has attempted to disrupt and discredit Uyghur activism to further its agenda. Through its Transnational repression and significant influence in INTERPOL, China built a false narrative about Mr. Isa's work and life. Declaring him a separatist and terrorist, they convinced the agency to issue an INTERPOL Red Notice. That shadowed Isa for 21 years and almost cost him his life as he narrowly escaped extradition to China. During detention and deportation in democratic countries, Isa also finds himself uncovering corruption and peeling back the layers of the liberal institutions to see China at its rotting core.
  		 
  This book serves as a historical account of the political activities and behind-the-scenes diplomatic battles between China, the Uyghurs, and other interested or invested countries and institutions; a personal history of Isa’s struggle for the freedom of himself and his people; and ultimately, as a warning to other activists, policymakers, and interested parties: China's power and influence run more profound than most can fathom, they are growing, and they cannot be ignored.
  		 
  ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  		 
  Dolkun Isa is the President of the World Uyghur Congress.
  		 
  He was a student-leader in pro-democracy demonstrations at Xinjiang University in 1988. He founded the Students' Science and Culture Union at the university in 1987, working on programs to eliminate illiteracy, promote science and lead other students in East Turkistan. After enduring persecution from the Chinese government, he fled China in 1994, sought asylum in Europe, and became a German citizen in 2006. He has worked to mobilize the Uyghur diaspora community to collectively advocate for their rights. In 1997, an Interpol Red Notice was issued against him, deleted 21 years later, in 2018.
  		 
  Dolkun’s organization was nominated for the 2023 Noble Peace Prize, a testament to his dedication to enlightening the world about the plight of his fellow citizens from East Turkestan, better known as Xinjiang province.

  Show book

• 

  Ambiguities of Domination -...

  Lisa Wedeen

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  Treating rhetoric and symbols as central rather than peripheral to politics, Lisa Wedeen’s groundbreaking book offers a compelling counterargument to those who insist that politics is primarily about material interests and the groups advocating for them. During the thirty-year rule of President Hafiz al-Asad’s regime, his image was everywhere. In newspapers, on television, and during orchestrated spectacles. Asad was praised as the “father,” the “gallant knight,” even the country’s “premier pharmacist.” Yet most Syrians, including those who create the official rhetoric, did not believe its claims. Why would a regime spend scarce resources on a personality cult whose content is patently spurious? Wedeen shows how such flagrantly fictitious claims were able to produce a politics of public dissimulation in which citizens acted as if they revered the leader. By inundating daily life with tired symbolism, the regime exercised a subtle, yet effective form of power. The cult worked to enforce obedience, induce complicity, isolate Syrians from one another, and set guidelines for public speech and behavior. Wedeen‘s ethnographic research demonstrates how Syrians recognized the disciplinary aspects of the cult and sought to undermine them. In a new preface, Wedeen discusses the uprising against the Syrian regime that began in 2011 and questions the usefulness of the concept of legitimacy in trying to analyze and understand authoritarian regimes.

  Show book

• 

  On the House - A Washington Memoir

  John Boehner

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  This program is read by the author.* INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER *“A rollicking, foil-mouthed” [memoir]....Boehner has delivered a classic Washington “tell-all,” albeit one with his typical jocular style.” --The Washington PostFormer Speaker of the House John Boehner shares colorful tales from the halls of power, the smoke-filled rooms around the halls of power, and his fabled tour bus.John Boehner is the last of a breed. At a time when the arbiters of American culture were obsessing over organic kale, cold-pressed juice, and SoulCycle, the man who stood second in line to the presidency was unapologetically smoking Camels, quaffing a glass of red, and hitting the golf course whenever he could.There could hardly have been a more diametrically opposed figure to represent the opposition party in President Barack Obama's Washington. But when Boehner announced his resignation, President Obama called to tell the outgoing Speaker that he'd miss him. "Mr. President," Boehner replied, "yes you will." He thought of himself as a "regular guy with a big job," and he enjoyed it.In addition to his own stories of life in the swamp city and of his comeback after getting knocked off the leadership ladder, Boehner offers his impressions of leaders he's met and what made them successes or failures, from Ford and Reagan to Obama, Trump, and Biden. He shares his views on how the Republican Party has become unrecognizable today; the advice--some harsh, some fatherly--he dished out to members of his own party, the opposition, the media, and others; and his often acid-tongued comments about his former colleagues. And of course he talks about golfing with five presidents.Through Speaker Boehner's honest and self-aware reflections, you'll be reminded of a time when the adults were firmly in charge.A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin's Press

  Show book

• 

  Keywords - The New Language of...

  John Patrick Leary

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  “A clever, even witty examination of the manipulation of language in these days of neoliberal or late stage capitalism” (Counterpunch).   From Silicon Valley to the White House, from kindergarten to college, and from the factory floor to the church pulpit, we are all called to be innovators and entrepreneurs, to be curators of an ever-expanding roster of competencies, and to become resilient and flexible in the face of the insults and injuries we confront at work. In the midst of increasing inequality, these keywords teach us to thrive by applying the lessons of a competitive marketplace to every sphere of life. What’s more, by celebrating the values of grit, creativity, and passion at school and at work, they assure us that economic success is nothing less than a moral virtue.   Organized alphabetically as a lexicon, Keywords explores the history and common usage of major terms in the everyday language of capitalism. Because these words have infiltrated everyday life, their meanings may seem self-evident, even benign. Who could be against empowerment, after all? Keywords uncovers the histories of words like innovation, which was once synonymous with “false prophecy” before it became the prevailing faith of Silicon Valley. Other words, like best practices and human capital, are relatively new coinages that subtly shape our way of thinking. As this book makes clear, the new language of capitalism burnishes hierarchy, competition, and exploitation as leadership, collaboration, and sharing, modeling for us the habits of the economically successful person: be visionary, be self-reliant—and never, ever stop working.

  Show book

• 

  Henry David Thoreau: On The Duty...

  Henry David Thoreau

  • 0
  • 0
  • 0

  "That government is best which governs least" is the famous opening line of this essay. The slavery crisis inflamed New England in the 1840s and 1850s. The environment became especially tense after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. A lifelong abolitionist, Thoreau delivered an impassioned speech which would later become Civil Disobedience in 1848, just months after leaving Walden Pond. The speech dealt with slavery, but at the same time excoriated American imperialism, particularly the Mexican–American War. Thoreau asserts that because governments are typically more harmful than helpful, they therefore cannot be justified. Democracy is no cure for this, as majorities simply by virtue of being majorities do not also gain the virtues of wisdom and justice. The judgment of an individual's conscience is not necessarily inferior to the decisions of a political body or majority, and so "[i]t is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.... Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice." He adds, "I cannot for an instant recognize as my government [that] which is the slave's government also.

  Show book