This Unquiet Land: Stories From India’s Fault Lines
Barkha Dutt
Aleph Book India (hardback), 2015
PRs 1195
One of the most remarkable books ever published about contemporary India, arguably the most complex society on earth, This Unquiet Land tells the truth about the country’s secrets and lies, its torments and triumphs, and its heroes and villains. This is the first book by Barkha Dutt, India’s best known journalist. India’s fault lines run wide and deep.
Some of them go back centuries, others are of comparatively recent origin. The myriad villains these fault lines have spawned include rapists, murderers, terrorists, prophets of religious hatred, corrupt politicians, upholders of abhorrent caste traditions, opponents of free speech and dissent, apologists for regressive cultural practices, and external adversaries who try to destabilise India’s borders. All of them are responsible for impeding the country’s progress, destroying the lives of numberless innocents, usually the poorest and most vulnerable of Indian people, and besmirching the democratic, plural, free and secular nature of Indian society. Set against these enemies of India’s promise are the heroic ones — the poor, illiterate woman who was gang-raped but helped change the nation’s attitude towards women through her determined fight for justice; the wife whose husband was beheaded by Maoist terrorists, yet sought not revenge but succour for the poor and underprivileged; and the son of the village blacksmith who was lynched by a mob of religious fundamentalists appealing for an end to discord and sectarian violence. These stories, and dozens of others like them, map the country’s fault lines. In this book, Barkha Dutt recounts the ones that have left an indelible mark on her. Taken together, they provide a vivid, devastating and unforgettable portrait of India.
Uberpower: The Imperial Temptation of America
Josef Joffe
W. W. Norton & Company (paperback), 2007
PRs 1720
Überpower effortlessly mixes military history with keen diplomatic analysis to provide one of the most important assessments of America’s international standing in years. Josef Joffe examines the gargantuan burdens brought on by singular power, arguing that the new Bush foreign policy doctrine has failed to convert fabulous strength into consent and leadership. In contrast to most of his European colleagues, Joffe does not paddle “Mr Big” for his new überpower status, but traces the roots of Europe’s (and the world’s) new anti-Americanism to envy, fear, and the failure to keep up. But history whispers that power will generate counterpower, and the handwriting is already on the wall. How can the überpower escape the fate of earlier hegemons who were all laid low by lesser nations ganging up on No 1? Überpower promises to be discussed and debated in the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic.
Critical Security Studies and World Politics
Ken Booth
Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc (hardback), 2005
PRs 1100
Realist assumptions of security studies increasingly have been challenged by an approach that places the human being, rather than the state, at the centre of security concerns. This text is an indispensable statement of the ideas of this critical security project, written by some of its leading exponents. ?The book is structured around three concepts —security, community, and emancipation —that arguably are central to the future shape of world politics. Each of its three parts begins with a survey of key theoretical issues, followed by an investigation of current case material. The authors emphasise that critical security is about the problems of real people in real places, and about linking theory and practice. Throughout, they address the fundamental questions at the heart of critical thinking about security.
Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand
Signet (paperback), 1996
PRs 695
Set in a near-future US, whose economy is collapsing as a result of the mysterious disappearance of leading innovators and industrialists, this novel presents an astounding panorama of human life - from the productive genius who becomes a worthless playboy... to the great steel industrialist who does not know that he is working for his own destruction... to the philosopher who becomes a pirate... to the woman who runs a transcontinental railroad... to the lowest track worker in her train tunnels.
Peopled by larger-than-life heroes and villains, charged with towering questions of good and evil, Atlas Shrugged is a philosophical revolution told in the form of an action thriller.
What people are saying
[A] vibrant and powerful novel of ideas - New York Herald Tribune
Ayn Rand is destined to rank in history as the outstanding novelist and most profound philosopher of the twentieth century - New York
Daily Mirror
Atlas Shrugged is not merely a novel. It is also - or may I say first of all - a cogent analysis of the evils that plague our society - Ludwig von Mises, philosopher and economist
Fear’s empire: War, Terrorism, and Democracy
Benjamin R Bar
W W Norton & Company (paperback), 2004
PRs 1720
In this hard-hitting but pragmatic new critique of the Bush administration’s foreign policy, Benjamin R. Barber “provides the first coherent and insightful response to the dubiousness and danger of preemptive attack and preventive war” (Senator Gary Hart). He shows how chosen “rogue states” have been made to stand in for terrorists too difficult to locate and destroy, and how the United State continues to support dictatorships in nations it regards as friends, while believing we can impose democracy on vanquished enemies at the barrel of a gun. We cannot defeat fear with fear. Fear is terrorism’s most powerful weapon. If we let ourselves be ruled by our imaginings of what “might” happen, we become instruments - willing or unwilling subjects - of “fear’s empire”.
What people are saying
Lucid informed and compelling – George Soros ??
Passionate and persuasive, well-documented and incisive, Fear’s Empire is essential reading at this critical time in world affairs – Bob Kerrey, President, New School University?
Barber once again proves that he is among the very top serious thinkers and writers about American politics and culture – Leslie H Gelb, President, Council on Foreign Relations