Editorial: Frontline Books
In August 1909, a kindly, balding, figure named Mansfield Smith-Cumming was summoned to London by Admiral Alexander Bethell, Director of Naval Intelligence. He was to assume the inaugural position of Chief – more famously known as ‘C – of what has become
Why we need to think more like economists to successfully combat terrorism If we are to correctly assess the root causes of terrorism and successfully address the threat, we must think more like economists do. This is the argument of Alan Krueger's What Makes a Terrorist, a book that explains why our tactics in the fight against terrorism must be based on more than anecdote, intuition, and speculation. Many popular ideas about terrorists and why they seek to harm us are fueled by falsehoods, misinformation, and fearmongering. Many believe that poverty and lack of education breed terrorism, despite the wealth of evidence showing that most terrorists come from middle-class, and often college-educated, backgrounds. Krueger closely examines the factors that motivate individuals to participate in terrorism, drawing inferences from terrorists' own backgrounds and the economic, social, religious, and political environments in the societies from which they come. He describes which countries are the most likely breeding grounds for terrorists, and which ones are most likely to be their targets. Krueger addresses the economic and psychological consequences of terrorism and puts the threat squarely into perspective, revealing how our nation's sizable economy is diverse and resilient enough to withstand the comparatively limited effects of most terrorist strikes. He also calls on the media to be more responsible in reporting on terrorism. Bringing needed clarity to one of the greatest challenges of our generation, this 10th anniversary edition of What Makes a Terrorist features a new introduction by the author that discusses the lessons learned in the past decade from the rise of ISIS and events like the 2016 Pulse nightclub attack in Orlando, Florida.Ver libro
“A compelling story of the ethnic cleansing of Christian communities caught in the crossfire of the Middle East at war . . . Urgent and passionate” (Kirkus Reviews). In 2013, alarmed by scant attention paid to the hardships endured by the 7.5 million Christians in the Middle East, journalist Klaus Wivel—who practices no religion himself—traveled to Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories on a quest to learn more about their fate. He found an oppressed minority, constantly under threat of death and humiliation, increasingly desperate in the face of rising Islamic extremism and without hope that their situation would improve, or anyone would come to their aid. Wivel spoke with priests whose churches have been burned, citizens who feel like strangers in their own countries, and entire communities whose only hope for survival may be fleeing into exile. With the increase of religious violence in recent years, The Last Supper is a prescient and unsettling account of a severely beleaguered religious group living, so it seems, on borrowed time. In this book, Wivel recounts this humanitarian crisis in detail and asks why we have we not done more to protect these people.Ver libro
The UK's vote to leave the European Union shocked the world - not to mention many people in Britain. What it revealed about our country is at least as significant for the future of politics as Brexit itself. Drawing on more than two years of intensive research by Lord Ashcroft Polls, Well, You Did Ask… explains how voters came to make the most momentous political decision of our time - how they saw the choice before them, what they made of the campaign, its personalities, claims and counterclaims - and why they ultimately chose to take the UK out of the EU. As the country sets about negotiating a new relationship with Europe, it also offers a colourful and revealing look at what our continental neighbours think about Britain and the British. To think clearly about what the referendum result means, we first need to understand how it came about. The answers are in this book.Ver libro
A panel of historians and activists reflect on the historic 1963 March on Washington and the enduring significance of Martin Luther King Jr.'s rousing "I Have a Dream" speech.Ver libro
An approach to reinvigorating economic competition that doesn’t break up corporate giants, but compels them to share their technology, data, and knowledge “Bessen is a master of unpacking the nuances of a complex array of interrelated trends to build a coherent story of how the promise of the democratized Internet ended up under the control of just a few. Read The New Goliaths to see how the forest came to have only room for a few tall trees with the rest of us in the undergrowth.”—Joshua Gans, coauthor of Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence Historically, competition has powered progress under capitalism. Companies with productive new products rise to the top, but sooner or later, competitors come along with better innovations and disrupt the threat of monopoly. Dominant firms like Walmart, Amazon, and Google argue that this process of “creative destruction” prevents them from becoming too powerful or entrenched. But the threat of competition has sharply decreased over the past twenty years, and today’s corporate giants have come to power by using proprietary information technologies to create a tilted playing field. This development has increased economic inequality and social division, slowed innovation, and allowed dominant firms to evade government regulation. In the face of increasing calls to break up the largest companies, James Bessen argues that a better way to restore competitive balance and dynamism is to encourage or compel these companies to share technology, data, and knowledge.Ver libro
In this timely book, the authors provide a detailed analysis of Russia's national interests in the Arctic region. They assess Russia's domestic discourse on the High North's role in the system of national priorities as well as of Moscow's bi- and multilateral relations with major regional players, energy, environmental, socio-cultural, and military policies in the Arctic. In contrast to the internationally wide-spread stereotype of Russia as a revisionist power in the High North, this book argues that Moscow tries to pursue a double-sided strategy in the region. On the one hand, Russia aims at defending her legitimate economic interests in the region. On the other hand, Moscow is open to co-operation with foreign partners that are willing to partake in exploiting the Arctic natural resources. The general conclusion is that in the foreseeable future Moscow's strategy in the region will be predictable and pragmatic rather than aggressive or spontaneous. The authors argue that in order to consolidate the soft power pattern of Russia's behavior a proper international environment in the Arctic should be created by common efforts. Other regional players should demonstrate their responsibility and willingness to solve existing and potential problems on the basis of international law.Ver libro
