Download or read book The Gun written by C. J. Chivers and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-09-06 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author, a New York Times reporter, traces the invention and mass distribution of the AK-47 assault rifle, and its effects on war. He traces the invention of the assault rifle, following the miniaturization of rapid-fire arms from the American Civil War, through World War I and Vietnam, to present-day Afghanistan, where Kalashnikovs and their knockoffs number as many as 100 million, one for every seventy persons on earth. It is the weapon of state repression, as well as revolution, civil war, genocide, drug wars, and religious wars; and it is the arms of terrorists, guerrillas, boy soldiers, and thugs. From its inception to its use by more than fifty national armies around the world, to its role in modern-day Afghanistan, he discusses how the deadly weapon has helped alter world history.

Download or read book Guerrillas and Combative Mothers written by Siphokazi Magadla and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-12-01 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Guerrillas and Combative Mothers is a narrative of women participating in the armed struggle against apartheid from 1961 to 1994 and their lives in a democratic South Africa. Focusing on their agency, commitment, beliefs and actions, it describes how women got politicised and the decisions and circumstances that led them to join the armed struggle in South Africa and exile. Siphokazi Magadla discusses the forms of military training they received, the combat activities and their transformation as women and soldiers. Magadla also talks about their participation in the South African National Defence Force-led demobilisation process and their contributions to the democratic revolution of the SANDF. By illuminating the different eras and arenas of their participation, this book shows the broadness of the armed struggle against apartheid as a historical truth and as a matter of gender equality and justice for an inclusive and more democratic future.

Download or read book Sport in Europe written by J A Mangan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the cultural, social, political, economic and aesthetic history of Sport in Europe. As sport has grown, progressively replacing religion, in its power to excite passion, provide emotional escape, offer fraternal (and increasingly sororital) bonding, it has become an inescapable reality linking public environment with intimate experience and thus offers the historian an opportunity to inspect and attempt to grasp all the dimensions of the recent past and their relative share in individual and collective experience. This collection considers the evolution of modern sport in Europe and examines its relationshop with politics, gender and class.

Download or read book Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs written by Lorraine Bayard de Volo and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2001-10-12 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Founded during the Nicaraguan revolution, the Mothers of Heroes and Martyrs of Matagalpa comprises women who supported the revolution but did not carry guns. The author focuses on the group to explore 'maternal identity politics'.

Download or read book SAS and Elite Forces Guide Armed Combat written by Martin Dougherty and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2024-10-03 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book explores the different uses of hand weapons, from pistols to semiautomatics to sniper’s rifles, from flick knives to machetes, from stun grenades to CS gas, from knuckle-dusters to nunchaku sticks. With tips and techniques from combat experts, the book explains which weapon to choose for given situations and how to use each weapon. With more than 300 easy-to-follow illustrations and handy pull-out lists of key training tips, Guns, Knives & Other Personal Weapons is the definitive guide for anyone wanting to be ready for anything.

Download or read book Burkina Faso written by Ernest Harsch and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In October 2014, huge protests across Burkina Faso succeeded in overthrowing the long-entrenched regime of their authoritarian ruler, Blaise Compaoré. Defying all expectations, this popular movement went on to defeat an attempted coup by the old regime, making it possible for a transitional government to organize free and fair elections the following year. In doing so, the people of this previously obscure West African nation surprised the world, and their struggle stands as one of the few instances of a popular democratic uprising succeeding in postcolonial sub-Saharan Africa. For over three decades, Ernest Harsch has researched and reported from Burkina Faso, interviewing subjects ranging from local democratic activists to revolutionary icon Thomas Sankara, the man once dubbed 'Africa's Che Guevara.' In this book, Harsch provides a compelling history of this little understood country, from the French colonial period to the Compaoré regime and the movement that finally deposed him.

Download or read book The Second Kind of Impossible written by Paul Steinhardt and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Society Insight Investment Science Book Prize* One of the most fascinating scientific detective stories of the last fifty years, an exciting quest for a new form of matter. “A riveting tale of derring-do” (Nature), this book reads like James Gleick’s Chaos combined with an Indiana Jones adventure. When leading Princeton physicist Paul Steinhardt began working in the 1980s, scientists thought they knew all the conceivable forms of matter. The Second Kind of Impossible is the story of Steinhardt’s thirty-five-year-long quest to challenge conventional wisdom. It begins with a curious geometric pattern that inspires two theoretical physicists to propose a radically new type of matter—one that raises the possibility of new materials with never before seen properties, but that violates laws set in stone for centuries. Steinhardt dubs this new form of matter “quasicrystal.” The rest of the scientific community calls it simply impossible. The Second Kind of Impossible captures Steinhardt’s scientific odyssey as it unfolds over decades, first to prove viability, and then to pursue his wildest conjecture—that nature made quasicrystals long before humans discovered them. Along the way, his team encounters clandestine collectors, corrupt scientists, secret diaries, international smugglers, and KGB agents. Their quest culminates in a daring expedition to a distant corner of the Earth, in pursuit of tiny fragments of a meteorite forged at the birth of the solar system. Steinhardt’s discoveries chart a new direction in science. They not only change our ideas about patterns and matter, but also reveal new truths about the processes that shaped our solar system. The underlying science is important, simple, and beautiful—and Steinhardt’s firsthand account is “packed with discovery, disappointment, exhilaration, and persistence...This book is a front-row seat to history as it is made” (Nature).

Download or read book Green written by Dan Michaels and published by Chronicle Books. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated, quick-reference edition of the acclaimed cannabis guide, with facts and photos for 150 strains. At a time when marijuana laws are rapidly changing in many states, this quick-reference edition of Dan Michaels’s Green delivers the planet’s best bud photography. Organized alphabetically, each of the 150 strains features a gorgeous bud shot plus a breezy description of the bud and its essential stats (lineage, flavor, high, and medicinal uses). Updated with more popular strains as well as new live plant and microscopic bud photography, this edition of Green is the go-to strain guide for recreational and medicinal users alike.

Download or read book Stalin written by Robert Service and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 772 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Overthrowing the conventional image of Stalin as an uneducated political administrator inexplicably transformed into a pathological killer, Service reveals a more complex and fascinating story behind this notorious twentieth-century figure. Drawing on unexplored archives and personal testimonies gathered from across Russia and Georgia, this is the first full-scale biography of the Soviet dictator in twenty years.

Download or read book Regular Soldiers Irregular War written by Devorah S. Manekin and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What explains differences in soldier participation in violence during irregular war? How do ordinary men become professional wielders of force, and when does this transformation falter or fail? Regular Soldiers, Irregular War presents a theoretical framework for understanding the various forms of behavior in which soldiers engage during counterinsurgency campaigns—compliance and shirking, abuse and restraint, as well as the creation of new violent practices. Through an in-depth study of the Israeli Defense Forces' repression of the Second Palestinian Intifada of 2000–2005, including in-depth interviews with and a survey of former combatants, Devorah Manekin examines how soldiers come both to unleash and to curb violence against civilians in a counterinsurgency campaign. Manekin argues that variation in soldiers' behavior is best explained by the effectiveness of the control mechanisms put in place to ensure combatant violence reflects the strategies and preferences of military elites, primarily at the small-unit level. Furthermore, she develops and analyzes soldier participation in three categories of violence: strategic violence authorized by military elites; opportunistic or unauthorized violence; and "entrepreneurial violence"—violence initiated from below to advance organizational aims when leaders are ambiguous about what will best serve those aims. By going inside military field units and exploring their patterns of command and control, Regular Soldiers, Irregular War, sheds new light on the dynamics of violence and restraint in counterinsurgency.

Download or read book written by Gwen Olsen and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2005-08-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States health care system is killing Americans at an alarming rate, even though we spend over fifteen percent of the Gross National Product (GNP) on health care. According to the "Journal of the American Medical Association," our health care outcomes ranked only fifteenth among twenty-five industrialized nations worldwide. Adverse effects from prescription drugs have become the third-leading killer of Americans. Only heart disease and cancer claim more lives. We trust our doctors to inform us and our government to protect us from medical malfeasance that may put profits ahead of consumer health and safety. But the fine line walked by the FDA between the interests of the pharmaceutical manufacturers and the American public has continually been crossed. The result is the unleashing of an unprecedented number of lethal drugs on the U.S. market! Gwen Olsen learned firsthand the danger that lurks in every American's medicine cabinet, working in the pharmaceutical industry. But her most poignant education would come as a victim and, ultimately, as a survivor. Rigorously researched and documented, "Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher: God's Call to Loving Arms" is a moving, human drama that illustrates the catastrophic consequences of a health care system run amuck!

Download or read book Super Bitches and Action Babes written by Rikke Schubart and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-08-23 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With actress Pam Grier's breakthrough in Coffy and Foxy Brown, women entered action, science fiction, war, westerns and martial arts films--genres that had previously been considered the domain of male protagonists. This ground-breaking cinema, however, was--and still is--viewed with ambivalence. While women were cast in new and exciting roles, they did not always arrive with their femininity intact, often functioning both as a sexualized spectacle and as a new female hero rather than female character. This volume contains an in-depth critical analysis and study of the female hero in popular film from 1970 to 2006. It examines five female archetypes: the dominatrix, the Amazon, the daughter, the mother and the rape-avenger. The entrance of the female hero into films written by, produced by and made for men is viewed through the lens of feminism and post-feminism arguments. Analyzed works include films with actors Michelle Yeoh and Meiko Kaji, the Alien films, the Lara Croft franchise, Charlie's Angels, and television productions such as Xena: Warrior Princess and Alias.

Download or read book Becoming the Tupamaros written by Lindsey Churchill and published by Vanderbilt University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Becoming the Tupamaros, Lindsey Churchill explores an alternative narrative of US-Latin American relations by challenging long-held assumptions about the nature of revolutionary movements like the Uruguayan Tupamaros group. A violent and innovative organization, the Tupamaros demonstrated that Latin American guerrilla groups during the Cold War did more than take sides in a battle of Soviet and US ideologies. Rather, they digested information and techniques without discrimination, creating a homegrown and unique form of revolution. Churchill examines the relationship between state repression and revolutionary resistance, the transnational connections between the Uruguayan Tupamaro revolutionaries and leftist groups in the US, and issues of gender and sexuality within these movements. Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver, for example, became symbols of resistance in both the United States and Uruguay. and while much of the Uruguayan left and many other revolutionary groups in Latin America focused on motherhood as inspiring women's politics, the Tupamaros disdained traditional constructions of femininity for female combatants. Ultimately, Becoming the Tupamaros revises our understanding of what makes a Movement truly revolutionary.

Download or read book For All the Gold in the World written by Massimo Carlotto and published by Europa Editions. This book was released on 2016-07-19 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The best living Italian crime writer” immerses readers in a gritty noir novel featuring PI Marco “the Alligator” Buratti (Il Manifesto). This novel, by one of Italy’s bestselling crime novelists, provides a unique perspective on the criminal and social dynamics that dominate contemporary Italy. One of the many robberies that plague Northeast Italy goes wrong and ends with a brutal murder. The police investigation turns up nothing. Two years later, Marco Buratti, alias “the Alligator,” is asked to look into the crime and find out who was responsible. Buratti’s employer is young, the youngest client he has ever had; he is only twelve years old and is the son of one of the victims. The Alligator realizes right from the start that the truth is cloaked, twisted, shocking. Together with his associates, Beniamino Rossini and Max the Memory, he finds himself mixed up in a story involving contraband gold and blood vendettas between criminal gangs. “Finishing an Alligator mystery is like waking up after an all-night bender with your best friends. . . . You’re not 100 percent sure what happened. But you know you had a good time.” —Cedar Rapids Gazette “Melancholy-tinged, Carlotto’s novel is quite nicely turned and solid entertainment.” —The Complete Review

Download or read book Armed Combat written by Martin J Dougherty and published by Amber Books Ltd. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written in easy-to-understand steps and accompanied with more than 150 black-and-white illustrations, Armed Combat guides the reader through everything they need to know to overcome an armed aggressor in any hand-to-hand combat situation.

Download or read book My War Gone By I Miss It So written by Anthony Loyd and published by September Publishing. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 315 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Undoubtedly the most powerful and immediate book to emerge from the Balkan horror of ethnic civil war' Antony Beevor, Daily Telegraph In 1993, Anthony Loyd hitchhiked to the Balkans hoping to become a journalist. Leaving behind him the legends of a distinguished military family, he wanted to see 'a real war' for himself. In Bosnia he found one. The cruelty and chaos of the conflict both appalled and embraced him; the adrenalin lure of the action perhaps the loudest siren call of all. In the midst of the daily life-and-death struggle among Bosnia's Serbs, Croats and Muslims, Loyd was inspired by the extraordinary human fortitude he discovered. But returning home he found the void of peacetime too painful to bear, and so began a longstanding personal battle with drug abuse. This harrowing account shows humanity at its worst and best. It is a breathtaking feat of reportage; an uncompromising look at the terrifyingly seductive power of war. 'As good as reporting gets. I have nowhere read a more vivid account of frontline fear and survival. Forget the strategic overview. All war is local' Martin Bell, The Times

Download or read book Opening Repertoire The Sveshnikov written by Cyrus Lakdawala and published by Everyman Chess. This book was released on 2020-03-01 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sveshnikov Variation of the Sicilian Defence provides a battleground for one of the key conflicts in chess: structure versus activity. Black voluntarily accepts a weak pawn formation but in return obtains easy development and excellent piece activity. This is a line that finds favour with aggressive, attacking players who are confident in their tactical ability. The idea of playing ...e5 in the Sicilian is an old one but the modern Sveshnikov treatment was developed in the 1970s, since when it has featured in the repertoires of numerous elite players. It is currently experiencing great popularity due to the fact that it was Magnus Carlsen’s choice in his World Championship Match against Fabiano Caruana in London 2018. Carlsen’s success with the line was a significant factor in his eventual victory in the match. Since then he has continued to use the Sveshnikov with great success. In Opening Repertoire: The Sveshnikov leading chess author Cyrus Lakdawala guides the reader through the complexities of this dynamic variation and carves out a repertoire for Black. He examines all aspects of this highly complex opening and provides the reader with well-researched, fresh, and innovative analysis. Each annotated game has valuable lessons on how to play the opening and contains instructive commentary on typical middlegame plans. * A complete repertoire for Black in the Sicilian Sveshnikov. * A question and answer approach provides an excellent study method.