Download or read book Bombs and Ballots written by Krista E. Wiegand and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-15 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eventually, most terrorist and guerrilla groups are defeated by governments or gradually die off - sometimes becoming political parties, democratically participating in the non-violent governance of their states. Yet some terrorist and guerrilla groups maintain military capabilities, using violence and democratic participation simultaneously. Here, Krista E. Wiegand examines the different political strategies that Islamist terrorist and guerrilla groups use to achieve their political objectives. Focussing on Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, Wiegand skilfully reveals the factors that determine why Islamist militant groups become involved in governance as political parties, how mainstream governments may or may not accept them as legitimate, why some groups like al- Gama'a al-Islamiya in Egypt renounce guerrilla tactics, and how some groups govern whilst employing political violence. Bombs and Ballots is a valuable contribution to the study of state-society relations in the Middle East, exposing the blurred line between terrorist activity and governance.
Download or read book Dying to Win written by Robert Pape and published by Random House Trade Paperbacks. This book was released on 2006-07-25 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Includes a new Afterword Finalist for the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award One of the world’s foremost authorities on the subject of suicide terrorism, the esteemed political scientist Robert Pape has created the first comprehensive database of every suicide terrorist attack in the world from 1980 until today. In Dying to Win, Pape provides a groundbreaking demographic profile of modern suicide terrorist attackers–and his findings offer a powerful counterpoint to what we now accept as conventional wisdom on the topic. He also examines the early practitioners of this guerrilla tactic, including the ancient Jewish Zealots, who in A.D. 66 wished to liberate themselves from Roman occupation; the Ismaili Assassins, a Shi’ite Muslim sect in northern Iran in the eleventh and twelfth centuries; World War II’s Japanese kamikaze pilots, three thousand of whom crashed into U.S. naval vessels; and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a secular, Marxist-Leninist organization responsible for more suicide terrorist attacks than any other group in history. Dying to Win is a startling work of analysis grounded in fact, not politics, that recommends concrete ways for states to fight and prevent terrorist attacks now. Transcending speculation with systematic scholarship, this is one of the most important studies of the terrorist threat to the United States and its allies since 9/11. “Invaluable . . . gives Americans an urgently needed basis for devising a strategy to defeat Osama bin Laden and other Islamist militants.” –Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris “Provocative . . . Pape wants to change the way you think about suicide bombings and explain why they are on the rise.” –Henry Schuster, CNN.com “Enlightening . . . sheds interesting light on a phenomenon often mistakenly believed to be restricted to the Middle East.” –The Washington Post Book World “Brilliant.” –Peter Bergen, author of Holy War, Inc.
Download or read book The Tiger s Wife written by Téa Obreht and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-03-08 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • The instant classic debut novel from the author of Inland and The Morningside, hailed as “a thrilling beginning to what will certainly be a great literary career” (Elle) “Spectacular . . . [Téa Obreht] spins a tale of such marvel and magic in a literary voice so enchanting that the mesmerized reader wants her never to stop.”—Entertainment Weekly “Not since Zadie Smith has a young writer arrived with such power and grace.”—Time ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times; Entertainment Weekly; The Christian Science Monitor; The Kansas City Star; Library Journal In a Balkan country mending from war, Natalia, a young doctor, is compelled to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. Searching for clues, she turns to his worn copy of The Jungle Book and the stories he told her of his encounters over the years with “the deathless man.” But most extraordinary of all is the story her grandfather never told her—the legend of the tiger’s wife. Weaving a brilliant latticework of family legend, loss, and love, Téa Obreht, hailed by Colum McCann as “the most thrilling literary discovery in years,” has spun a timeless novel that will establish her as one of the most vibrant, original authors of her generation. ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Wall Street Journal, O: The Oprah Magazine, The Economist, Vogue, Slate, Chicago Tribune, The Seattle Times, Dayton Daily News, Publishers Weekly, Alan Cheuse, NPR’s All Things Considered
Download or read book Politics in Taiwan written by Shelley Rigger and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-05-03 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book shows that Taiwan, unlike other countries, avoided serious economic disruption and social conflict, and arrived at its goal of multi-party competition with little blood shed. Nonetheless, this survey reveals that for those who imagine democracy to be the panacea for every social, economic and political ill, Taiwan's continuing struggles against corruption, isolation and division offer a cautionary lesson. This book is an ideal, one-stop resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of political science, particuarly those interested in the international politics of China, and the Asia-Pacific.
Download or read book Eternal Harvest written by Karen Coates and published by ThingsAsian Press. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Karen Coates and Jerry Redfern spent more than seven years traveling in Laos, talking to farmers, scrap-metal hunters, people who make and use tools from UXO, people who hunt for death beneath the earth and render it harmless. With their words and photographs, they reveal the beauty of Laos, the strength of Laotians, and the commitment of bomb-disposal teams. People take precedence in this account, which is deeply personal without ever becoming a polemic.
Download or read book Insider Baseball written by Joan Didion and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Vintage Shorts Selection • Almost three decades ago, iconic and incomparable American essayist Joan Didion’s now-classic report from the Dukakis campaign trail exposed, in no uncertain terms, the complete sham that is the modern American presidential run. Writing with bite and some humor too, Didion betrays “the process”—the way in which power is exchanged and the status quo is maintained. All insiders—politicians, journalists, spin doctors—participate in a political narrative that is “designed as it is to maintain the illusion of consensus by obscuring rather than addressing actual issues.” The optics of presidential campaigns have grown ever more farcical and remote from the needs and issues most relevant to Americans’ lives, and Didion’s elegant, shrewd, and prescient commentary has never been more urgent than it is right now. An ebook short.
Download or read book We Were Caught Unprepared written by Matt M. Matthews and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 105 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. The fact that the outcome of the 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War was, at best, a stalemate for Israel has confounded military analysts. Long considered the most professional and powerful army in the Middle East, with a history of impressive military victories against its enemies, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) emerged from the campaign with its enemies undefeated and its prestige tarnished. This historical analysis of the war includes an examination of IDF and Hezbollah doctrine prior to the war, as well as an overview of the operational and tactical problems encountered by the IDF during the war. The IDF ground forces were tactically unprepared and untrained to fight against a determined Hezbollah force. ¿An insightful, comprehensive examination of the war.¿ Illustrations.
Download or read book The White Tiger written by Aravind Adiga and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-04-22 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE The stunning Booker Prize–winning novel from the author of Amnesty and Selection Day that critics have likened to Richard Wright’s Native Son, The White Tiger follows a darkly comic Bangalore driver through the poverty and corruption of modern India’s caste society. “This is the authentic voice of the Third World, like you've never heard it before” (John Burdett, Bangkok 8). The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture, the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society. Recalling The Death of Vishnu and Bangkok 8 in ambition, scope, The White Tiger is narrative genius with a mischief and personality all its own. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel is an international publishing sensation—and a startling, provocative debut.
Download or read book Conundrum Of An Island Sri Lanka s Geopolitical Challenges written by Asanga Abeyagoonasekera and published by World Scientific. This book was released on 2021-01-15 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a compilation of essays on several themes intended to provoke thought on and promote understanding about everyday political and social life on an island facing constant geopolitical and domestic political challenges. The themes of this book are: 4/21 Terror Attack and National Security; China, Belt and Road Initiative and Sri Lankan Foreign Policy; Geopolitics; Sustaining Democracy and Facing a Pandemic; and Domestic Political Stability, Leadership and Economic Crime.Most essays have captured the domestic viewpoint from which to begin drawing a wider picture of the global geopolitical tapestry. The chapters enframe a variety of domestic political incidents, conflicts of various actors, and the conundrum of an island in the Indian Ocean, stuck in the triangular maritime power dynamics among the United States, China, and India. They also examine the influences from foreign nations towards Sri Lanka's foreign policy and the dynamics of security challenges in the larger geosphere and marine sphere of South Asia and the Indian Ocean respectively. The chapters offer the reader an Olympian viewpoint of the challenges Sri Lanka faces, attempting to find connections and patterns towards greater external geopolitical influence and how it impacts domestic politics.
Download or read book Tigers of the Tigris written by Mark Kerry and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2008-12 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tigers of the Tigris: An American Advisor's Journey Through Culture, Religion and Intrigue in Building the Iraqi Armyis a remarkable memoir of a military advisor with a military advisory team referred to as a Military Transition Team (MiTT) in Iraq. It is required reading for those interested in understanding how U.S. forces used military advisory teams to achieve unity of effort to build legitimacy and strengthen security forces. It is also required reading to understand Iraqi cultural and religious aspects and the center of gravity for the war - the concept of winning and changing of hearts and minds in Iraq. The author carries readers behind closed doors to witness negotiations, intrigue and the struggle to win the hearts and minds of local sheikhs and religious leaders. He describes meetings with prominent religious leaders such as Abd El Azziz Al Hakim, the head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq and Ayatollah Hussein Al Sadr, a powerful Shi'a cleric in Baghdad. Experience the daunting tasks faced by the MiTT to advise, coach, teach and mentor Iraqi security forces and provide direct access to coalition capabilities such as fire support, medical evacuation, and intelligence gathering. Enjoy the sweet success in getting the first Iraqi Army Brigade to achieve full responsibility for its own battle sector in Iraq. Live through what it is like dealing with sectarian problems between the Sunni Arab majority who had held power for many centuries and the Shi'a Arabs, the nation's long-repressed majority. Understand the role that culture and religion play in Iraqi society and how American soldiers adapted to overcome these problems. Tigers of the Tigrisis an informative read that provides first-hand accounts from military advisors in the field who go about their day-to-day duties of both fighting the insurgents and winning hearts and minds of Iraqis. "There has been a lot written about day to day combat operations, but this book will take you inside the little publicized effort to build an Iraqi force for stabilizing the country. It is a must read if you have someone in Iraq or if you just want to know what it is like for an American soldier in Iraq working side by side with Iraqi soldiers to build a new Army." Stephen E. Henthorne, FRUSI Senior Advisor, Civil-Military Centre of Excellence (CCOE-NATO), Joint-Interagency-Multinational Stability Operations (Joint CA/CIMIC/CMO Interoperability) "An insightful book. Tigers of the Tigrisprovides not only an exciting memoir of an American military advisor, but also a manual for effective counterinsurgency. Through personal stories the author describes the impact of culture and religion and the ever important non-lethal interaction with Iraqi citizens." Huntington Blair (Hunt) Downer, Major General, Louisiana Army National Guard. "Mark Kerry has opened a window into the cultural inner-workings of Iraqi society and its army that illuminate the challenges Iraqis are facing in rebuilding their society as free and democratic. He also illustrates the cultural undercurrents that lead to phenomena that otherwise mystify a Western observer. Kerry's book is a must-read for American officers detailed to advisory positions. I also recommend it as an exemplar of a model of counterinsurgency that demonstrates the considerable gains made from simply visiting religious and tribal opinion leaders, answering their questions and addressing their concerns, and persuading them to support the goals and activities of the counterinsurgent." Dr. Adam Shilling
Download or read book The Perfect Weapon written by David E. Sanger and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOW AN HBO® DOCUMENTARY FROM AWARD-WINNING DIRECTOR JOHN MAGGIO • “An important—and deeply sobering—new book about cyberwarfare” (Nicholas Kristof, New York Times), now updated with a new chapter. The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents—Bush and Obama—drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal and, during President Trump’s first year, turned back on the United States and its allies. And if Obama would begin his presidency by helping to launch the new era of cyberwar, he would end it struggling unsuccessfully to defend the 2016 U.S. election from interference by Russia, with Vladimir Putin drawing on the same playbook he used to destabilize Ukraine. Moving from the White House Situation Room to the dens of Chinese government hackers to the boardrooms of Silicon Valley, New York Times national security correspondent David Sanger reveals a world coming face-to-face with the perils of technological revolution, where everyone is a target. “Timely and bracing . . . With the deep knowledge and bright clarity that have long characterized his work, Sanger recounts the cunning and dangerous development of cyberspace into the global battlefield of the twenty-first century.”—Washington Post
Download or read book Freedom in the World 2004 written by Aili Piano and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004 with total page 756 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Freedom in the World contains both comparative ratings and written narratives and is now the standard reference work for measuring the progress and decline in political rights and civil liberties on a global basis.
Download or read book Paying the Human Costs of War written by Christopher Gelpi and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-09 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the Korean War to the current conflict in Iraq, Paying the Human Costs of War examines the ways in which the American public decides whether to support the use of military force. Contrary to the conventional view, the authors demonstrate that the public does not respond reflexively and solely to the number of casualties in a conflict. Instead, the book argues that the public makes reasoned and reasonable cost-benefit calculations for their continued support of a war based on the justifications for it and the likelihood it will succeed, along with the costs that have been suffered in casualties. Of these factors, the book finds that the most important consideration for the public is the expectation of success. If the public believes that a mission will succeed, the public will support it even if the costs are high. When the public does not expect the mission to succeed, even small costs will cause the withdrawal of support. Providing a wealth of new evidence about American attitudes toward military conflict, Paying the Human Costs of War offers insights into a controversial, timely, and ongoing national discussion.
Download or read book Psychology of Terrorism written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In compiling this annotated bibliography on the psychology of terrorism, the author has defined terrorism as "acts of violence intentionally perpetrated on civilian noncombatants with the goal of furthering some ideological, religious or political objective." The principal focus is on nonstate actors. The task was to identify and analyze the scientific and professional social science literature pertaining to the psychological and/or behavioral dimensions of terrorist behavior (not on victimization or effects). The objectives were to explore what questions pertaining to terrorist groups and behavior had been asked by social science researchers; to identify the main findings from that research; and attempt to distill and summarize them within a framework of operationally relevant questions. To identify the relevant social science literature, the author began by searching a series of major academic databases using a systematic, iterative keyword strategy, mapping, where possible, onto existing subject headings. The focus was on locating professional social science literature published in major books or in peer-reviewed journals. Searches were conducted of the following databases October 2003: Sociofile/Sociological Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts (CJ Abstracts), Criminal Justice Periodical Index (CJPI), National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts (NCJRS), PsycInfo, Medline, and Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS). Three types of annotations were provided for works in this bibliography: Author's Abstract -- this is the abstract of the work as provided (and often published) by the author; Editor's Annotation -- this is an annotation written by the editor of this bibliography; and Key Quote Summary -- this is an annotation composed of "key quotes" from the original work, edited to provide a cogent overview of its main points.
Download or read book The New New Deal written by Michael Grunwald and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2012-08-14 with total page 627 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a riveting account based on new documents and interviews with more than 400 sources on both sides of the aisle, award-winning reporter Michael Grunwald reveals the vivid story behind President Obama’s $800 billion stimulus bill, one of the most important and least understood pieces of legislation in the history of the country. Grunwald’s meticulous reporting shows how the stimulus, though reviled on the right and the left, helped prevent a depression while jump-starting the president’s agenda for lasting change. As ambitious and far-reaching as FDR’s New Deal, the Recovery Act is a down payment on the nation’s economic and environmental future, the purest distillation of change in the Obama era. The stimulus has launched a transition to a clean-energy economy, doubled our renewable power, and financed unprecedented investments in energy efficiency, a smarter grid, electric cars, advanced biofuels, and green manufacturing. It is computerizing America’s pen-and-paper medical system. Its Race to the Top is the boldest education reform in U.S. history. It has put in place the biggest middle-class tax cuts in a generation, the largest research investments ever, and the most extensive infrastructure investments since Eisenhower’s interstate highway system. It includes the largest expansion of antipoverty programs since the Great Society, lifting millions of Americans above the poverty line, reducing homelessness, and modernizing unemployment insurance. Like the first New Deal, Obama’s stimulus has created legacies that last: the world’s largest wind and solar projects, a new battery industry, a fledgling high-speed rail network, and the world’s highest-speed Internet network. Michael Grunwald goes behind the scenes—sitting in on cabinet meetings, as well as recounting the secret strategy sessions where Republicans devised their resistance to Obama—to show how the stimulus was born, how it fueled a resurgence on the right, and how it is changing America. The New New Deal shatters the conventional Washington narrative and it will redefine the way Obama’s first term is perceived.
Download or read book The Shining Path Love Madness and Revolution in the Andes written by Orin Starn and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-04-30 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A narrative history of the unlikely Maoist rebellion that terrorized Peru even after the fall of global Communism. On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru’s presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town in the Andean heartland. They set election ballots ablaze and vanished into the night, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square. The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path. The tale of how this ferocious group of guerrilla insurgents launched a decade-long reign of terror, and how brave police investigators and journalists brought it to justice, may be the most compelling chapter in modern Latin American history, but the full story has never been told. Described by a U.S. State Department cable as “cold-blooded and bestial,” Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres across the cities, countryside, and jungles of Peru in a murderous campaign to seize power and impose a Communist government. At its helm was the professor-turned-revolutionary Abimael Guzmán, who launched his single-minded insurrection alongside two women: his charismatic young wife, Augusta La Torre, and the formidable Elena Iparraguirre, who married Guzmán soon after Augusta’s mysterious death. Their fanatical devotion to an outmoded and dogmatic ideology, and the military’s bloody response, led to the death of nearly 70,000 Peruvians. Orin Starn and Miguel La Serna’s narrative history of Shining Path is both panoramic and intimate, set against the socioeconomic upheavals of Peru’s rocky transition from military dictatorship to elected democracy. They take readers deep into the heart of the rebellion, and the lives and country it nearly destroyed. We hear the voices of the mountain villagers who organized a fierce rural resistance, and meet the irrepressible black activist María Elena Moyano and the Nobel Prize–winning novelist Mario Vargas Llosa, who each fought to end the bloodshed. Deftly written, The Shining Path is an exquisitely detailed account of a little-remembered war that must never be forgotten.
Download or read book Subalterns and Raj written by Crispin Bates and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-16 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Subalterns and Raj presents a unique introductory history of India with an account that begins before the period of British rule, and pursues the continuities within that history up to the present day. Its coverage ranges from Mughal India to post-independence Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, with a focus on the ‘ordinary’ people of India and South Asia. Subalterns and Raj examines overlooked issues in Indian social history and highlights controversies between historians. Taking an iconoclastic approach to the elites of South Asia since independence, it is critical of the colonial regime that went before them. This book is a stimulating and controversial read and, with a detailed guide to further reading and end-of-chapter bibliographies, it is an excellent guide for all students of the Indian subcontinent.
