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The Tender Soldier: A True Story of War and Sacrifice
By Vanessa M. Gezari. 2013
A “sharp-eyed look at the complexities of war” (Parade), that explores the inner workings of the Human Terrain System, a…
Pentagon program that sends civilian social scientists into war zones to help soldiers understand local culture.On the day Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, a small group of American civilians took their optimism and experience to a village west of Kandahar, Afghanistan. They were part of the Pentagon’s controversial attempt to bring social science to the battlefield, driven by the notion that you can’t win a war if you don’t understand the enemy and his culture. The field team in Afghanistan that day included an intrepid Texas blonde, a former bodyguard for Afghan president Hamid Karzai, and an ex-military intelligence sergeant who had come to Afghanistan to make peace with his troubled past. But not all goes as planned. In this tale of moral suspense, journalist Vanessa Gezari follows these three idealists from the hope that brought them to Afghanistan through the events of the fateful day when one is gravely wounded, an Afghan is dead, and a proponent of cross-cultural engagement is charged with his murder. Through it all, these brave Americans ended up showing the world just how determined they were to get things right, how hard it was to really understand a place like Afghanistan where storytelling has been a major tool of survival, and why all future wars will involve this strange mix of fighting and listening.Vanessa Gezari is the only journalist to have gained access to the lives of people inside this troubled Army program, including the brilliant, ambitious figures who conceived it. This true story of war and sacrifice will upend your ideas about what really went wrong in Afghanistan.The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World
By Michael Karpin. 2007
THE BOMB IN THE BASEMENT tells the fascinating story of how Israel became the Middle East's only nuclear power and…
-- unlike Iraq and Iran -- succeeded in keeping its atomic program secret. Veteran Israeli journalist Michael Karpin explains how Israel, by far the smallest of the nuclear powers, succeeded in its ambitious effort. David Ben-Gurion saw the need for an atomic capability to offset the numerical superiority of Arab armies at war with Israel. The Israeli program relied heavily on French assistance in its early years, until President Charles de Gaulle reduced his country's cooperation. Once it was discovered, Israel's nuclear program cast a shadow over relations between Israel and the United States. The Kennedy administration opposed it, and President Lyndon Johnson approved it only tacitly. Significant change took place when President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger adopted a new strategy. An Israel that possessed nuclear capability was a more valuable asset to the West than an Israel without such an option. President Nixon ceased to press Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and dropped U.S. surveillance of the Israeli reactor at Dimona. In exchange, Israel committed itself to maintain official ambiguity about its nuclear program. That policy remains in place nearly forty years later. Without American approval and the financial assistance and lobbying of Jews in North America, Israel could not have achieved its nuclear capability. This is a fascinating story of scientists, politicians, spies, and major international personalities who all played a part in an extraordinary undertaking that continues to shape the politics of the world's most volatile region. Today it remains to be seen whether Israel will permit Iran to build a nuclear bomb and threaten Israel's security.A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA
By Joshua Kurlantzick. 2017
The untold story of how America&’s secret war in Laos in the 1960s transformed the CIA from a loose collection…
of spies into a military operation and a key player in American foreign policy.January, 1961: Laos, a tiny nation few Americans have heard of, is at risk of falling to communism and triggering a domino effect throughout Southeast Asia. This is what President Eisenhower believed when he approved the CIA&’s Operation Momentum, creating an army of ethnic Hmong to fight communist forces there. Largely hidden from the American public—and most of Congress—Momentum became the largest CIA paramilitary operation in the history of the United States. The brutal war lasted more than a decade, left the ground littered with thousands of unexploded bombs, and changed the nature of the CIA forever.With &“revelatory reporting&” and &“lucid prose&” (The Economist), Kurlantzick provides the definitive account of the Laos war, focusing on the four key people who led the operation: the CIA operative whose idea it was, the Hmong general who led the proxy army in the field, the paramilitary specialist who trained the Hmong forces, and the State Department careerist who took control over the war as it grew.Using recently declassified records and extensive interviews, Kurlantzick shows for the first time how the CIA&’s clandestine adventures in one small, Southeast Asian country became the template for how the United States has conducted war ever since—all the way to today&’s war on terrorism.The Death Class: A True Story About Life
By Erika Hayasaki. 2014
The poignant, “powerful” (The Boston Globe) look at how to appreciate life from an extraordinary professor who teaches about death:…
“Poetic passages and assorted revelations you’ll likely not forget” (Chicago Tribune).Why does a college course on death have a three-year waiting list? When nurse Norma Bowe decided to teach a course on death at a college in New Jersey, she never expected it to be popular. But year after year students crowd into her classroom, and the reason is clear: Norma’s “death class” is really about how to make the most of what poet Mary Oliver famously called our “one wild and precious life.”Under the guise of discussions about last wills and last breaths and visits to cemeteries and crematoriums, Norma teaches her students to find grace in one another. In The Death Class, award-winning journalist Erika Hayasaki followed Norma for more than four years, showing how she steers four extraordinary students from their tormented families and neighborhoods toward happiness: she rescues one young woman from her suicidal mother, helps a young man manage his schizophrenic brother, and inspires another to leave his gang life behind. Through this unorthodox class on death, Norma helps kids who are barely hanging on to understand not only the value of their own lives, but also the secret of fulfillment: to throw yourself into helping others. Hayasaki’s expert reporting and literary prose bring Norma’s wisdom out of the classroom, transforming it into an inspiring lesson for all. In the end, Norma’s very own life—and how she lives it—is the lecture that sticks. “Readers will come away struck by Bowe’s compassion—and by the unexpectedly life-affirming messages of courage that spring from her students’ harrowing experiences” (Entertainment Weekly).A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture
By Wu Dingming. 2014
A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture is an accessible introduction to the beautiful, vibrant world of Chinese customs, history, and…
civilization. Written for English speakers, with simplified Chinese translations of key words, the text invites students of China and the Chinese language to engage with the text in new and interesting ways. Covering everything from history, philosophy, and religion, to sports, cuisine, and medicine, A Panoramic View of Chinese Culture covers a vast array of topics with elegance and ease.Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang
By Zhao Ziyang. 2010
Premier Zhao Ziyang reveals the secret workings of China's government behind the Tiananmen massacre—and why he was deposed for trying…
to stop it.Prisoner of the State is the story of Premier Zhao Ziyang, the man who brought liberal change to China and who was dethroned at the height of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 for trying to stop the massacre. Zhao spent the last years of his life under house arrest. An occasional detail about his life would slip out, but scholars and citizens lamented that Zhao never had his final say. But Zhao did produce a memoir, secretly recording on audio tapes the real story of what happened during modern China&’s most critical moments. He provides intimate details about the Tiananmen crackdown, describes the ploys and double crosses used by China&’s leaders, and exhorts China to adopt democracy in order to achieve long-term stability. His riveting, behind-the-scenes recollections form the basis of Prisoner of the State. The China that Zhao portrays is not some long-lost dynasty. It is today&’s China, where its leaders accept economic freedom but resist political change. Zhao might have steered China&’s political system toward openness and tolerance had he survived. Although Zhao now speaks from the grave, his voice still has the moral power to make China sit up and listen.Tokugawa Religion: The Cultural Roots of Modern Japan
By Robert Bellah. 1957
Robert N. Bellah's classic study, Tokugawa Religion does for Japan what Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of…
Capitalism did for the West. One of the foremost authorities on Japanese history and culture, Bellah explains how religion in the Tokugawa period (160-1868) established the foundation for Japan's modern industrial economy and dispels two misconceptions about Japanese modernization: that it began with Admiral Perry's arrival in 1868, and that it rapidly developed because of the superb Japanese ability for imitation. In this revealing work, Bellah shows how the native doctrines of Buddhism, Confucianism and Shinto encouraged forms of logic and understanding necessary for economic development. Japan's current status as an economic superpower and industrial model for many in the West makes this groundbreaking volume even more important today than when it was first published in 1957. With a new introduction by the author.Briefly Perfectly Human: Making an Authentic Life by Getting Real About the End
By Alua Arthur. 2024
A deeply transformative memoir that reframes how we think about death and how it can help us lead better, more…
fulfilling and authentic lives, from America’s most visible death doula."A truly unique, inspiring perspective on the time we have, what we do with it, and how we let go of this world.... There is no one I'd trust more to guide me through an understanding of death, and how it informs life." — Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of Mad Honey and The Book of Two Ways"Briefly Perfectly Human is a beautiful, raw, light-bringing experience. Alua's voice is shimmering, singular, and pulses with humor, vulnerability, insight, and refreshing candor.... Be prepared for it to grab you, hold you tight, and raise the roof on the power of human connection." — Tembi Locke, author of From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding HomeFor her clients and everyone who has been inspired by her humanity, Alua Arthur is a friend at the end of the world. As our country’s leading death doula, she’s spreading a transformative message: thinking about your death—whether imminent or not—will breathe wild, new potential into your life.Warm, generous, and funny AF, Alua supports and helps manage end-of-life care on many levels. The business matters, medical directives, memorial planning; but also honoring the quiet moments, when monitors are beeping and loved ones have stepped out to get some air—or maybe not shown up at all—and her clients become deeply contemplative and want to talk. Aching, unfinished business often emerges. Alua has been present for thousands of these sacred moments—when regrets, fears, secret joys, hidden affairs, and dim realities are finally said aloud. When this happens, Alua focuses her attention at the pulsing center of her clients’ anguish and creates space for them, and sometimes their loved ones, to find peace.This has had a profound effect on Alua, who was already no stranger to death’s periphery. Her family fled a murderous coup d’état in Ghana in the 1980s. She has suffered major, debilitating depressions. And her dear friend and brother-in-law died of lymphoma. Advocating for him in his final months is what led Alua to her life’s calling. She knows firsthand the power of bearing witness and telling the truth about life’s painful complexities, because they do not disappear when you look the other way. They wait for you.Briefly Perfectly Human is a life-changing, soul-gathering debut, by a writer whose empathy, tenderness, and wisdom shimmers on the page. Alua Arthur combines intimate storytelling with a passionate appeal for loving, courageous end-of-life care—what she calls “death embrace.” Hers is a powerful testament to getting in touch with something deeper in our lives, by embracing the fact of our own mortality. “Hold that truth in your mind,” Alua says, “and wondrous things will begin to grow around it.”Reimagining India: Unlocking the Potential of Asia's Next Superpower
By Inc. McKinsey & Company. 2013
Reimagining India brings together leading thinkers from around the world to explore the challenges and opportunities faced by one of…
the most important and least understood nations on earth. India’s abundance of life—vibrant, chaotic, and tumultuous—has long been its foremost asset. The nation’s rising economy and burgeoning middle class have earned India a place alongside China as one of the world’s two indispensable emerging markets. At the same time, India’s tech-savvy entrepreneurs and rapidly globalizing firms are upending key sectors of the world economy. But what is India’s true potential? And what can be done to unlock it? McKinsey & Company has pulled in wisdom from many corners—social and cultural as well as economic and political—to launch a feisty debate about the future of Asia’s “other superpower.” Reimagining India features an all-star cast of contributors, including CNN’s Fareed Zakaria; Mukesh Ambani, CEO of India’s largest private conglomerate; Microsoft founder Bill Gates; Google chairman Eric Schmidt; Harvard Business School dean Nitin Nohria; award-winning authors Suketu Mehta (Maximum City), Edward Luce (In Spite of the Gods), and Patrick French (India: A Portrait); Nandan Nilekani, Infosys cofounder and chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India; and a host of other leading executives, entrepreneurs, economists, foreign policy experts, journalists, historians, and cultural luminaries. These essays explore topics like the strengths and weaknesses of India’s political system, growth prospects for India’s economy, the competitiveness of Indian firms, India’s rising international profile, and the rapid evolution of India’s culture.Over the next decade India has the opportunity to show the rest of the developing world how open, democratic societies can achieve high growth and shared prosperity. Contributors offer creative strategies for seizing that opportunity. But they also offer a frank assessment of the risks that India’s social and political fractures will instead thwart progress, condemning hundreds of millions of people to enduring poverty. Reimagining India is a critical resource for readers seeking to understand how this vast and vital nation is changing—and how it promises to change the world around us.Histories of Health in Southeast Asia: Perspectives on the Long Twentieth Century (China Medical Board Centennial Series)
By Tim Harper and Sunil S. Amrith. 2014
Health patterns in Southeast Asia have changed profoundly over the past century. In that period, epidemic and chronic diseases, environmental…
transformations, and international health institutions have created new connections within the region and the increased interdependence of Southeast Asia with China and India. In this volume leading scholars provide a new approach to the history of health in Southeast Asia. Framed by a series of synoptic pieces on the "Landscapes of Health" in Southeast Asia in 1914, 1950, and 2014 the essays interweave local, national, and regional perspectives. They range from studies of long-term processes such as changing epidemics, mortality and aging, and environmental history to detailed accounts of particular episodes: the global cholera epidemic and the hajj, the influenza epidemic of 1918, WWII, and natural disasters. The writers also examine state policy on healthcare and the influence of organizations, from NGOs such as the China Medical Board and the Rockefeller Foundation to grassroots organizations in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines.This book explores Britain’s involvement in the Dhofar War of 1963-1976, focusing on the military aspects of this conflict in…
Southern Oman. It reveals how both the Conservative and Labour governments in office during this time provided military and security assistance to Oman’s rulers without parliamentary or press scrutiny. Based on archival material and witness accounts, as well as existing secondary source literature and memoirs, this study provides new insights into Britain’s clandestine embroilment in the Dhofar War, an often overlooked but historically significant intervention in the Middle East. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in the complex and often controversial history of Britain’s involvement in Middle Eastern politics in the post-colonial period.The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks
By Robin Romm. 2009
When Robin Romm's The Mother Garden was published, The New York Times Book Review called her "a close-up magician," saying,…
"hers is the oldest kind [of magic] we know: the ordinary incantation of words and stories to help us navigate the darkness and finally to hold the end at bay." In her searing memoir The Mercy Papers, Romm uses this magic to expand the weeks before her mother's death into a story about a daughter in the moments before and after loss. With a striking mix of humor and honesty, Romm ushers us into a world where an obstinate hospice nurse tries to heal through pamphlets and a yelping grandfather squirrels away money in a shoe-shine kit. Untrained dogs scamper about as strangers and friends rally around death, offering sympathy as they clamor for attention. The pillbox turns quickly into a metaphor for order; questions about medication turn to musings about God. The mundane and spiritual melt together as Romm reveals the sharp truths that lurk around every corner and captures, with great passion, the awe, fear, and fury of a daughter losing her mother. The Mercy Papers was started in the midst of heartbreak, and not originally intended for an audience. The result is a raw, unsentimental book that reverberates with humanity. Robin Romm has created a tribute to family and an indelible portrait that will speak to anyone who has ever loved and lost.We Got Him!: A Memoir of the Hunt and Capture of Saddam Hussein
By Steve Russell. 2011
From retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Russell comes a compelling firsthand account of the blow-by-blow plays of the actual…
raids that led to the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003.When U.S. forces exterminated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1, 2011, the world witnessed a brilliantly fruitful example of history repeating itself; less than a decade earlier, the capture of Saddam Hussein, a triumph of military strategy in and of itself, opened the door for the more recent and essential victory in the War on Terror. At the center of the six-month manhunt were Lt. Col. Steve Russell and his men of the 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. With his extensive journal notes, combat reports, and painstaking research, Russell has preserved the story as only someone who lived the experience can do. His narrative chronicles the daily successes and dead ends, and describes, blow-by-blow, the actual raids that netted Saddam, culminating in the electrifying quote heard around the globe, &“We Got Him!&”The Removers: A Memoir
By Andrew Meredith. 2014
“A darkly funny memoir about family reckonings” (O, The Oprah Magazine)—the story of a young man who, by handling the…
dead, makes peace with the living.Andrew Meredith’s father, a literature professor at La Salle University, was fired after unspecified allegations of sexual misconduct. It’s a transgression that resulted in such long-lasting familial despair that Andrew cannot forgive him. In the wake of the scandal, he frantically treads water, stuck in a kind of suspended adolescence—falling in and out of school, moving blindly from one half-hearted relationship to the next. When Andrew is forced to move back home to his childhood neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia and take a job alongside his father as a “remover,” the name for those unseen, unsung men whose charge it is to take away the dead from their last rooms, he begins to see his father not through the lens of a wronged and resentful child, but through that of a sympathetic, imperfect man.Called “artful” and “compelling” by Thomas Lynch in The Wall Street Journal, Meredith’s poetic voice is as unforgettable as his story, and “he tucks his bittersweet childhood memories between tales of removals as carefully as the death certificates he slips between the bodies he picks up and the stretcher-like contraption that transports each body to the waiting vehicle” (Minneapolis Star-Tribune). “Potent” (Publishers Weekly), and “ultimately rewarding” (The Boston Globe), The Removers is a searing, coming-of-age memoir with “lyrical language and strong sense of place” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).World Tribunal on Iraq: Making the Case Against War
By Müge Gürsoy Sökmen. 2015
The World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI) was a collective effort involving hundreds of people from all over the world, most…
of them never having met in person. Inspired by the Bertrand Russell Tribunal of the Vietnam War era, WTI aimed to record not only the crimes against the Iraqi people, but also crimes committed against humanity. With contributions from over fifty internationally renowned experts, World Tribunal on Iraq examines every aspect of the war, from its legality, to the history of US and British military interventions in Iraq, to the role of international institutions and corporations in the occupation, to the use of torture, and to strategies of resistance.This edited volume offers a new critical approach to the study of Zionist history and Israeli-Palestinian relations, based on the…
encounter between history and anthropology.Informed by the anthropological method of setting large questions to intimate settings, the book examines processes of Zionist colonization, nation-building and Palestinian dispossession by focusing on encounters between members of different national, religious and ethnic groups “from below”—through paying close attention to life stories and reconstructing everyday practices and micro-histories of places and communities. Thus, it tells a complex story in which the practices of historical actors are not simply reducible to a single underlying logic of colonization, even as they participate in the production and reproduction of colonial structures. This approach effectively undermines the prevailing tendency to study national communities in isolation, projecting onto the past an essentialist and rigid separation. Rather than assuming two clearly bounded and monolithic national groups, caught from the start in perpetual conflict, this volume probes their historical production through their evolving relationships, and their varied and shifting political, social, economic and cultural manifestations. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in an array of fields, including the history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, anthropological perspectives on settler colonialism, and Zionism.Did I Ever Tell You?: A Memoir
By Genevieve Kingston. 2024
THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY, LIFE-AFFIRMING MEMOIR YOU WILL EVER READ ABOUT THE POWER OF LOVE.Did I Ever Tell You? reads like…
a novel but is an unforgettable true story. Genevieve (Gwen) Kingston was just eleven years old when her mother passed away, leaving behind a chest filled with gifts and letters to celebrate the milestones of Gwen&’s life and each of her birthdays until age thirty. When Did I Ever Tell You? opens, just three packages remain: engagement, marriage, and first baby. Tracing Gwen&’s coming-of-age, the book reveals a treasure hunt, with each gift and letter unveiling more about her mother, her family, and—ultimately—herself. Like Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner and The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, Did I Ever Tell You? is a riveting book filled with unexpected twists and powerful life lessons. Through her mother&’s fierce and courageous love, Gwen was granted the tools not only to move through grief but to cherish life. For as her mother says in one of her letters: &“love is stronger than death.&”Good Grief
By Brianna Pastor. 2024
“Brianna Pastor is by far one of my favorite new writers. Good Grief is a powerful testament that shows how…
hard the past can be and that overcoming it is possible. If you want to feel seen and deeply moved, read Good Grief. Brianna Pastor has unparalleled talent, let the power of her writing guide you to a better life.”—yung pueblo, #1 New York Times bestselling authorAn expanded edition with over forty brand-new poems of the bestselling poetry collection Good Grief by Brianna PastorWhen Brianna Pastor released her self-published poetry collection, Good Grief, she was blown away by the outpouring of support from people who reached out and said, “Yes. Me too.” For anyone who has struggled with questions of identity or coped with serious emotional issues, including grief, trauma, anxiety, and depression, this collection will help you find hope on the other side.we don’t know how long our pain will last. we assume that because it hurts now, it is probably going to hurt tomorrow. it may even hurt the next day. perhaps it will get worse. but we sleep, and you see, and we do this marvelous thing in our sleep—we mend. And tomorrow is not always what we thought it would be.—from Good GriefMaking Space for the Gulf: Histories of Regionalism and the Middle East (Worlding the Middle East)
By Arang Keshavarzian. 2024
The Persian Gulf has long been a contested space—an object of imperial ambitions, national antagonisms, and migratory dreams. The roots…
of these contestations lie in the different ways the Gulf has been defined as a region, both by those who live there and those beyond its shore. Making Space for the Gulf reveals how capitalism, empire-building, geopolitics, and urbanism have each shaped understandings of the region over the last two centuries. Here, the Gulf comes into view as a created space, encompassing dynamic social relations and competing interests. Arang Keshavarzian writes a new history of the region that places Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula together within global processes. He connects moments more often treated as ruptures—the discovery of oil, the Iranian Revolution, the rise and decline of British empire, the emergence of American power—and crafts a narrative populated by a diverse range of people—migrants and ruling families, pearl-divers and star architects, striking taxi drivers and dethroned rulers, protectors of British India and stewards of globalized American universities. Tacking across geographic scales, Keshavarzian reveals how the Gulf has been globalized through transnational relations, regionalized as a geopolitical category, and cleaved along national divisions and social inequalities. When understood as a process, not an object, the Persian Gulf reveals much about how regions and the world have been made in modern times. Making Space for the Gulf offers a fresh understanding of this globally consequential place.As Long as You Need: Permission to Grieve
By J. S. Park. 2024
"A heartfelt invitation for grieving readers...An excellent resource for those working their way through loss." —Publishers Weekly, Starred ReviewVeteran hospital…
chaplain to the sick, dying, and bereaved, J.S. Park offers you both the permission and the process for how to grieve and heal at your own pace.In As Long As You Need, J.S. offers an honest and unrushed engagement with grief, decoding four types of grieving—spiritual, mental, physical, and relational—and offering compassionate self-care and soul-care along the way.If you are struggling to process loss, pain, or grief from the last few years or the last few minutes, J.S. is an experienced and deeply empathetic listener and grief catcher who has held the pain and questions of thousands of patients. While social and cultural narratives about grief are dominated by "letting go, moving on, or turning the page" in his nearly decade of service as a chaplain at a major hospital with a designated level one trauma center J.S. understands firsthand how rushing or suppressing grief only adds a suffocating layer of pain on top of the original wound.From his unique window into the stories of the ill, injured, dying, and their families, J.S. offers you:Permission to dismantle all too common myths about grief and replace them with a guilt-free and unrushed approach to navigating your losses.Encouragement for how entering grief, rather than avoiding it, leads to a hard but meaningful holding of your loss.Empathy and hope if you are struggling with a crisis of faith in the midst of grief.Recognition that grief spans a wide narrative of loss: loss of future, faith, mental health, worth, autonomy, connection, and loved ones.Affirmation that your grief is your own. While the DNA of grief might be universal to the human condition, how you experience and process grief is unique to you. From the ER to deliveries to deathbeds across every sort of illness and injury imaginable, J.S. Park has provided meaningful counseling for people in all walks of life and death. Now, through his book he wants to assure you that, while everybody else might rush past your pain, grief is the voice that says, take as long as you need.