Download or read book The Mirage written by Matt Ruff and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2012-02-07 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mind-bending novel in which an alternate history of 9/11 and its aftermath uncovers startling truths about America and the Middle East 11/9/2001: Christian fundamentalists hijack four jetliners. They fly two into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers. The United Arab States declares a War on Terror. Arabian and Persian troops invade the Eastern Seaboard and establish a Green Zone in Washington, D.C. . . . Summer, 2009: Arab Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi interrogates a captured suicide bomber. The prisoner claims that the world they are living in is a mirage—in the real world, America is a superpower, and the Arab states are just a collection of "backward third-world countries." A search of the bomber's apartment turns up a copy of The New York Times, dated September 12, 2001, that appears to support his claim. Other captured terrorists have been telling the same story. The president wants answers, but Mustafa soon discovers he's not the only interested party. The gangster Saddam Hussein is conducting his own investigation. And the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee—a war hero named Osama bin Laden—will stop at nothing to hide the truth. As Mustafa and his colleagues venture deeper into the unsettling world of terrorism, politics, and espionage, they are confronted with questions without any rational answers, and the terrifying possibility that their world is not what it seems. Acclaimed novelist Matt Ruff has created a shadow world that is eerily recognizable but, at the same time, almost unimaginable. Gripping, subversive, and unexpectedly moving, The Mirage probes our deepest convictions and most arresting fears.
Download or read book The Mirage Factory written by Gary Krist and published by Crown. This book was released on 2019-05-14 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author Gary Krist, the story of the metropolis that never should have been and the visionaries who dreamed it into reality Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California—bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges—seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer, designed the massive aqueduct that would make urban life here possible. D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture, gave L.A. its signature industry. And Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist who founded a religion, cemented the city’s identity as a center for spiritual exploration. All were masters of their craft, but also illusionists, of a kind. The images they conjured up—of a blossoming city in the desert, of a factory of celluloid dreamworks, of a community of seekers finding personal salvation under the California sun—were like mirages liable to evaporate on closer inspection. All three would pay a steep price to realize these dreams, in a crescendo of hubris, scandal, and catastrophic failure of design that threatened to topple each of their personal empires. Yet when the dust settled, the mirage that was LA remained. Spanning the years from 1900 to 1930, The Mirage Factory is the enthralling tale of an improbable city and the people who willed it into existence by pushing the limits of human engineering and imagination.
Download or read book Mirage written by Somaiya Daud and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2018-08-28 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A refreshing and unique coming-of-age story...a beautiful and necessary meditation on finding strength in one’s culture.” —Entertainment Weekly, Top Pick of the Month “A YA marvel that will shock breath into your lungs. If you loved The Wrath and the Dawn and Children of Blood and Bone, Mirage will captivate you.” —The Christian Science Monitor “This debut fantasy has what it takes to be the next big thing in sci-fi/fantasy.” —SLJ, starred review “Immersive, captivating.” —ALA Booklist, starred review In a world dominated by the brutal Vathek empire, eighteen-year-old Amani is a dreamer. She dreams of what life was like before the occupation; she dreams of writing poetry like the old-world poems she adores; she dreams of receiving a sign from Dihya that one day, she, too, will have adventure, and travel beyond her isolated home. But when adventure comes for Amani, it is not what she expects: she is kidnapped by the regime and taken in secret to the royal palace, where she discovers that she is nearly identical to the cruel half-Vathek Princess Maram. The princess is so hated by her conquered people that she requires a body double, someone to appear in public as Maram, ready to die in her place. As Amani is forced into her new role, she can’t help but enjoy the palace’s beauty—and her time with the princess’ fiancé, Idris. But the glitter of the royal court belies a world of violence and fear. If Amani ever wishes to see her family again, she must play the princess to perfection...because one wrong move could lead to her death.
Download or read book Mirage Men written by Mark Pilkington and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2010-07-29 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking the truth about UFOs in America, Mark Pilkington and John Lundberg uncover a 60 year-old story stranger than any conspiracy thriller. Through the fascinating account of their quest Mark Pilkington reveals the long history of UFOria and its parallels in little known tales from the murky worlds of espionage, psychological warfare and advanced military technology. Along the way he discovers that the truth about flying saucers is stranger and more complex than either the ufologists or debunkers would have us believe. As he crossed the US meeting intelligence agents, disinformation specialists and UFO hunters Pilkington was confronted with a dizzying array of ever more outrageous claims and counter claims. As a result he began to suspect that, instead of covering up stories of crashed flying saucers, alien contacts and secret underground bases, the US intelligence agencies had actually been promoting them all along. Meanwhile he has to deal with his own uncertainties, the suspicions of the UFO community and a partner who is starting to believe that conspiracy theorists might be right after all. With a fresh, funny and objective approach, Pilkington is the ideal guide to steer us through these strange territories, where nothing is quite as it seems and reality is just a matter of managing perceptions.
Download or read book Mirage written by Aileen Keating and published by Prometheus Books. This book was released on 2012-05-25 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this fascinating history of the discovery, development, and exploitation of Middle East oil, an international journalist tells a largely unknown story rich in drama, conflict, and comic interludes. Illustrations.
Download or read book The China Mirage written by James Bradley and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2015-04-21 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of Flags of our Fathers, Flyboys, and The Imperial Cruise, a spellbinding history of turbulent U.S.-China relations from the 19th century to World War II and Mao's ascent. In each of his books, James Bradley has exposed the hidden truths behind America's engagement in Asia. Now comes his most engrossing work yet. Beginning in the 1850s, Bradley introduces us to the prominent Americans who made their fortunes in the China opium trade. As they -- -good Christians all -- -profitably addicted millions, American missionaries arrived, promising salvation for those who adopted Western ways. And that was just the beginning. From drug dealer Warren Delano to his grandson Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from the port of Hong Kong to the towers of Princeton University, from the era of Appomattox to the age of the A-Bomb, The China Mirage explores a difficult century that defines U.S.-Chinese relations to this day.
Download or read book The Mirage of China written by Xin Liu and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2009 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today's world is one marked by the signs of digital capitalism and global capitalist expansion, and China is increasingly being integrated into this global system of production and consumption. As a result, China's immediate material impact is now felt almost everywhere in the world; however, the significance and process of this integration is far from understood. This study shows how the a priori categories of statistical reasoning came to be re-born and re-lived in the People's Republic - as essential conditions for the possibility of a new mode of knowledge and governance. From the ruins of the Maoist revolution China has risen through a mode of quantitative self-objectification. As the author argues, an epistemological rift has separated the Maoist years from the present age of the People's Republic, which appears on the global stage as a mirage. This study is an ethnographic investigation of concepts - of the conceptual forces that have produced and been produced by - two forms of knowledge, life, and governance. As the author shows, the world of China, contrary to the common view, is not the Chinese world; it is a symptomatic moment of our world at the present time.
Download or read book The Mirage Man written by David Willman and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2011-06-07 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first time, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist David Willman tells the whole gripping story of the hunt for the anthrax killer who terrorized the country in the dark days that followed the September 11th attacks. Letters sent surreptitiously from a mailbox in New Jersey to media and political figures in New York, Florida, and Washington D.C. killed five people and infected seventeen others. For years, the case remained officially unsolved—and it consumed the FBI and became a rallying point for launching the Iraq War. Far from Baghdad, at Fort Detrick, Maryland, stood Bruce Ivins: an accomplished microbiologist at work on patenting a next-generation anthrax vaccine. Ivins, it turned out, also was a man the FBI consulted frequently to learn the science behind the attacks. The Mirage Man reveals how this seemingly harmless if eccentric scientist hid a sinister secret life from his closest associates and family, and how the trail of genetic and circumstantial evidence led inexorably to him. Along the way, Willman exposes the faulty investigative work that led to the public smearing of the wrong man, Steven Hatfill, a scientist specializing in biowarfare preparedness whose life was upended by media stakeouts and op-ed-page witch hunts. Engrossing and unsparing, The Mirage Man is a portrait of a deeply troubled scientist who for more than twenty years had unlimited access to the U.S. Army’s stocks of deadly anthrax. It is also the story of a struggle for control within the FBI investigation, the missteps of an overzealous press, and how a cadre of government officials disregarded scientific data while spinning the letter attacks into a basis for war. As The Mirage Man makes clear, America must, at last, come to terms with the lessons to be learned from what Bruce Ivins wrought. The nation’s security depends on it. From the Hardcover edition.
Download or read book Dwellers in the Mirage written by Abraham Merritt and published by eStar Books. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Leif Langdon who discovers an amazing warm valley in Alaska! Two races inhabit the valley, the Little People and a branch of an ancient Mongolian race and they worship the Kraken named Khalk'ru which they summon from another dimension to offer human sacrifice. The inhabitants believe Langdon to be the reincarnation of their long dead hero, Dwayanu...
Download or read book Inside The Mirage written by Thomas Lippman and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-11-10 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia has always been a marriage of convenience, not affection. In a bargain cemented by President Roosevelt and Saudi Arabia's founding king in 1945, Americans gained access to Saudi oil, and the Saudis sent the dollars back with purchases of American planes, American weapons, American construction projects and American know-how that brought them modernization, education and security. The marriage has suited both sides. But how long can it last? In Inside the Mirage , veteran Middle East journalist Thomas W. Lippman shows that behind the official proclamations of friendship and alliance lies a complex relationship that has often been strained by the mutual aversion of two very different societies. Today the U.S.-Saudi partnership faces its greatest challenge as younger Saudis less enamored of America rise to prominence and Americans, scorched by Saudi-based terrorism, question the value of their ties to the desert kingdom. With so much at stake for the entire, ever-volatile Middle East, this compelling and absolutely necessary account brings the light of new research onto the relationship between these two countries and the future of their partnership.
Download or read book Court of Lions written by Somaiya Daud and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2020-08-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Court of Lions is the long-awaited second and final installment in the “smart, sexy, and devilishly clever” Mirage series by Somaiya Daud (Renée Ahdieh, New York Times bestselling author of The Beautiful)! On a planet on the brink of revolution, Amani has been forced into isolation. She’s been torn from the boy she loves and has given up contact with her fellow rebels to protect her family. In taking risks for the rebel cause, Amani may have lost Maram’s trust forever. But the princess is more complex than she seems, and now Amani is once more at her capricious nature. One wrong move could see her executed for high treason. On the eve of Maram’s marriage to Idris comes an unexpected proposal: in exchange for taking her place in the festivities, Maram will keep Amani’s rebel associations a secret. Alone and desperate, Amani is thrust into the center of the court, navigating the dangerous factions on the princess's behalf. But the court is not what she expects. As a risky plan grows in her mind, and with the rebels poised to make their stand, Amani begins to believe her world might have a future. But every choice she makes comes with a cost. Can Amani risk the ones she loves the most for a war she's not sure she can win?
Download or read book The Mirage of Life written by William Haig Miller and published by . This book was released on 1860 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Mirage written by Zay N. Smith and published by Random House (NY). This book was released on 1979 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published two years after their award-winning newspaper series, this is the compelling, day-by-day account of two Sun-Times reporters who infiltrated the small businessman's world to expose corruption within the Chicago government. Zekman and Smith bought The Mirage tavern, then sat back and recorded the parade of city inspectors, liquor vendors, tradesmen, and others with their sticky fingers extended. With evidence in hand, they shut down the bar and wrote a series of articles that have never been matched in intensity and long-term effect. The Mirage became synonymous with Chicago corruption. The journalistic accolades also flowed in, but the Zekman and Smith's bid for the biggest-the Pulitzer Prize-was torpedoed, perhaps by jealous colleagues at another major metropolitan paper. This edition includes a new afterword by the authors.
Download or read book The Data Mirage written by Ruben Ugarte and published by Business Expert Press. This book was released on 2021-01-22 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Data Mirage: Why Companies Fail to Actually Use Their Data is a business book for executives and leaders who want to unlock more insights from their data and make better decisions.The importance of data doesn’t need an introduction or a fancy pitch deck. Data plays a critical role in helping companies to better understand their users, beat out their competitors, and breakthrough their growth targets. However, despite significant investments in their data, most organizations struggle to get much value from it. According to Forrester, only 38% of senior executives and decision-makers “have a high level of confidence in their customer insights and only 33% trust the analytics they generate from their business operations.” This reflects the real world that I have experienced. In this book, I will help readers formulate an analytics strategy that works in the real world, show them how to think about KPIs and help them tackle the problems they are bound to come across as they try to use data to make better decisions.
Download or read book The Otherness of Self written by Xin Liu and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the conflict between traditional Chinese ideology and modern Chinese business practice
Download or read book Mirage 5 Things People Want from God That Don t Exist written by David Young and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-06 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tired of Falling for Mirages? These days, reasons for irritability pop up as regularly as Facebook advertisements. Of all the reasons to be irritable, this one has to be the worst: We often want things that turn out not to exist. People can spend thier lives wholeheartedly pursuing things that are unreal. These mirages burst like soap bubbles, and we are left disappointed and frustrated. The purpose of this book is to expose five things people want from God that don't exist -so that we can retrain our desires to focus on what does exist. When we pursue what does exist, we will find our souls satisfied. DANIEL J. MCCOY Daniel is happily married to Susanna, and they have 3 daughters and 2 sons. Daniel works as editorial director for Renew.org. He has his bachelor's in theology (Ozark Christian College), and his PhD in theology (North-West University). He is the co-author of The Atheist's Fatal Flaw (Baker, 2014) with Norman Geisler, as well as the general editor of The Popular Handbook of World Religions (Harvest House, 2021). His passionis to help people understand that they can totally trust Jesus.
Download or read book The Mirage written by Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi and published by Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research. This book was released on 2015-07 with total page 823 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mirage is an expression of His Excellency Dr. Jamal Sanad Al-Suwaidi's perspective that the struggle in which many Arab and Muslim countries are currently engaged against extremist groups and organizations is not limited to the realm of military and security operations; it is also an extended war of an essentially intellectual nature that requires long-term planning, which is no less important indeed, perhaps even more so than planning in military and security terms. Academic scholarship plays a vital role in protecting the security of nations and societies via rigorous analysis of challenges and threats and the subsequent presentation of appropriate solutions. The role of scholars in times of historic conflict is to be at the forefront of the defenders of human and civilizational values against extremists and radical militants. It is to this end that the author has written this book. The book examines this phenomenon from multiple research angles: intellectual, political, ideological, cultural and social, exploring political religious thought in its various manifestations, and explaining the intellectual and organizational disparities between relevant groups. The book tracks the history of this phenomenon, tracing it to its peak in the early 2010s, revealing the intellectual and ideological characteristics of these groups for interested researchers, decision makers and the public in an effort to deconstruct the various obstacles they pose to civilizational progress and development in Arab and Muslim countries. Every chapter reflects the author's conviction that political religious groups represent neither the true face of Islam nor its moderate values, and that yielding to the claims of these groups is a serious affront to religion and its essential values of moderation and tolerance. The Mirage also employs an insightful research vision in its approach to political religious groups and their various practices and manifestations. It tracks their historical evolution and studies particular examples from their inception up until the recent failure of the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired governments that took power in certain Arab and Muslim countries, identifying the causes of their failure, exposing the fallacy of an 80-year legacy of pretentious slogans that attracted such veneration among these groups and their sympathizers not least among the Muslim Brotherhood itself. Readers will recognize that various elements of current realities in Arab and Muslim countries show similarities with the backwardness of certain aspects of the European Middle Ages particularly in terms of the ideologies and practices of political religious groups in the Arab and Muslim worlds in the modern era, and specifically their intellectual and political structures, the relationship between religion and politics, the role of clergy, as well as the prevailing philosophies in Europe and the Arab and Muslim worlds. This gives rise to several questions: are the Arab and Muslim worlds today fighting a similar battle to that experienced by the Europeans around five centuries ago? Does this mean that five centuries separate European and Islamic civilizations? And if so is there any way to overcome such a schism? Are backwardness and modernity inevitably sequential, whereby one becomes a prerequisite to the other? Why is modernity viewed as the antithesis of religiosity an implicit rejection of religion and its teachings? Why do some groups in the Arab and Muslim societies think that talk about religion ends where talk about progress and development begins? Why have referential concepts disappeared and given way to destructive ideas like those espoused by political religious groups? "
