Other books that might interest you

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  The Life of Music in South India

  T. Sankaran

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  This book offers an account of Carnatic music culture drawing on the knowledge of T. Sankaran, a musician raised in an illustrious non-Brahmin devadasi family, and his long affiliation with cultural institutions including All India Radio (AIR) and the Tamil Isai Sangam (Tamil Music Academy). Sankaran examines the cultural and social matrix in which Carnatic music was cultivated and consumed in mid-twentieth century India, including the ways that musicians negotiated caste politics and the double standard for male and female musicians. The memoir provides insight into the way AIR worked as a modern, bureaucratic institution, and how the opening of government music colleges interacted with caste politics and shifted women's participation in public performance. The book is polyvocal, as Sankaran's writing is interwoven with passages from Daniel M. Neuman's book The Life of Music in North India, which inspired Sankaran's project, as well as transcripts from interviews with Sankaran by Matthew Allen. Includes rare archival photos.

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  Faith's Answers to America's...

  Senator Joe Lieberman

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  Can the faith in God that most Americans share help us out of the political mess we're in? 
   
   
   
  As both a religiously observant person and a veteran of forty years in elective office, Senator Joe Lieberman is uniquely prepared to answer this question. In fact, he is the first person with political experience to pose and answer such a question in response to the current crisis of political division and governmental dysfunction in America. 
   
   
   
  Lieberman breaks down the causes of our political problems—including partisanship, incivility, and refusal to compromise—and then describes what the monotheistic faith that Christians, Jews, and Muslims share calls on us to do to overcome those problems. 
   
   
   
  He directs this appeal to members of Congress and the White House; leaders of the news and entertainment industry, who have such a large influence on our values and political behavior; and members of the clergy, who need to be leaders of a new Religious Awakening in America. 
   
   
   
  This book will provide a totally different way to look at American politics and government. It will open your mind and heart and give you hope for a better, more united future for our country.

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  The Battle for Isurava -...

  David W. Cameron

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  ‘You are trying to survive, shirt torn, arse out of your pants, whiskers a mile long, hungry … you carry your boots because there’s no skin on your feet. But when you look around at some of the others – hell! They look crook! … you dig a number of holes in the ground and bury your dead. Nothing would be said, but you think ‘maybe it will be my turn next’. 
  Within 24 hours of the Japanese invasion of northern New Guinea at Gona in July 1942, the Australian militiamen of ‘B’ Company, 39th Battalion, spent four weeks fighting a delaying action against a crack Japanese force outnumbered by three to one. By mid-August, the rest of the battalion had arrived, and these men took up a position at Isurava, in the heart of the cloud covered mountains and jungles of the Owen Stanley Range.  
  The battle for Isurava would be the defining battle of the Kokoda Campaign and has rightfully been described as Australia’s Thermopylae. It was here that Australia’s first Victoria Cross in the Pacific war was awarded when the Japanese conducted several ferocious attacks against the Australian perimetre.  
  The outnumbered and poorly equipped Australians managed to hold back the Japanese advance for almost a week; only then did these battle scared and weary men begin a month long fighting withdraw towards Ioribaiwa Ridge just north of Port Morsby. However, their sacrifice provided time for the Australian 25th Brigade to be brought forward — finally forcing the Japanese to withdrawal just as they glimpsed the lights of Port Morseby.  
  Using diaries, letters and other first-hand accounts and following on from The Battles for Kokoda Plateau, leading military historian David W Cameron continues his detailed and riveting account of the war in the Owen Stanleys in 1942.

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  The Power of Days - A Story of...

  Celeste Mergens

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  In 2008, Celeste Mergens was working with an overcrowded orphanage on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, when she learned that menstruating girls sat on cardboard in their rooms for several days each month. 
   
   
   
  This set into motion a simple idea—combining a washable, long-lasting pad with taboo-breaking education—that became a catalyst for an unlikely global movement for equity. 
   
   
   
  Written in short, evocative chapters, The Power of Days tells the story of Mergens's quest to rally a global response to elevate menstrual health, increase universal access to menstrual supplies, shatter stigma through education, and advocate for global policy change. Raised in poverty by a mentally ill parent, Mergens learned early on that building the life she wanted would take equal parts determination and humility, traits that led her to create the kinds of inclusive conversations and solutions she is known for around the globe. 
   
   
   
  The challenges Mergens faced and the lessons she learned, personally and professionally, and the triumphs and resourcefulness of leaders all over the globe are illuminating to all who wish to make a difference and create a more equitable world. 
   
   
   
  This enhanced audio recording features an audio-exclusive Q&A between Days for Girls cofounders Celeste and Don Mergens.

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  The Dressmaker of Khair Khana -...

  Anonymous

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  ""We're far more accustomed to—and comfortable with—seeing women portrayed as victims of war who deserve our sympathy rather than as resilient survivors who demand our respect…""  
  Former ABC journalist Gayle Tzemach Lemmon tells the riveting true story of Kamila Sidiqi and other women of Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban’s fearful rise to power. In what Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, calls “one of the most inspiring books I have ever read,” Lemmon recounts with novelistic vividness the true story of a fearless young woman who not only reinvented herself as an entrepreneur to save her family but, in the face of ferocious opposition, brought hope to the lives of dozens of women in war-torn Kabul.

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  Tainos and Caribs The: The...

  Editors Charles River

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  On October 12, 1492, one of the most important “first contacts” of the modern era was made when three ships of Spanish origin approached the island archipelago now known as the Bahamas, cautiously dropping anchor as the captain of the fleet gazed across to what he assumed was the coast of India. According to the popular version of the story, amazed at the sight of ships and men of such unfamiliar appearance, the native people of the island plunged into the clear waters of the western Atlantic, expertly swimming or aboard dugout canoes, and came out to greet the strangers. 
  	In all probability, the meeting was much more cautious and incremental, but the idea that these innocent people, raised in a tropical Eden, might embrace with such open enthusiasm their own destruction is picturesque, and no doubt appeals to contemporary perceptions. By whatever means one might choose to view it, this meeting of cultures certainly did mark the beginning of a bold new chapter in the history of Europe, and the beginning of the end of an ancient race of native people occupying a vast new continent.  
  	The entries into Christopher Columbus’ log as he recorded his first encounters with the indigenous people of the “Indies” are very telling. The island people arrived alongside his ships, offering humble gifts that Columbus described as “parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things, which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks' bells.” These were the Taínos people, or the “Arawaks” as they would come to be known, and Columbus described them as “well built…with good bodies and handsome features.”  
  	This description, while deceptively simple, had a chilling implication, because Columbus was not taking note of these facts out of idle interest but in terms of how best to exploit them. As the natives offered up gifts aand by implication the freedom of their islands, Columbus remarked simply on their primitive appearance.

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