King Peggy has the sweetness and quirkiness of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and the hopeful sense of possibility of Half the Sky.  King Peggy chronicles the astonishing journey of an American secretary who suddenly finds herself king to a town of 7,000 souls on Ghana's central coast, half a world away. Upon arriving for her crowning ceremony in beautiful Otuam, she discovers the dire reality: there's no running water, no doctor, and no high school, and many of the village elders are stealing the town's funds. To make matters worse, her uncle (the late king) sits in a morgue awaiting a proper funeral in the royal palace, which is in ruins. The longer she waits to bury him, the more she risks incurring the wrath of her ancestors. Peggy's first two years as king of Otuam unfold in a way that is stranger than fiction. In the end, a deeply traditional African town has been uplifted by the ambitions of its headstrong, decidedly modern female king. And in changing Otuam, Peggy is herself transformed, from an ordinary secretary to the heart and hope of her community.

    The Nationalist Party was still in power, but everyone knew that its grip on political power would draw to an inevitable end sooner rather than later. Memoirs of a Born Free is a journey back through the life of Malaika Wa Azania as she recounts the experience of growing up through the end of apartheid and South Africa’s transition into a democratic nation. She was not born during the times of constitutionalized apartheid but is still a product of an epoch of systematic individualized apartheid. Her story is not a reflection of freedom; it is an epitome of the ongoing struggle for liberation and emancipation from mental slavery. The struggle of the generations before that of the Born Frees was a struggle for political freedom and democracy and was the foundation for revolution and reform but not the ultimate goal. Malaika contests the notion of the born-free generation when it is a generation that was born in the midst of a struggle for economic freedom and the quest for the realization of the objectives of the African Renaissance. The book's purpose is to give an alternative narrative to the existing one that suggests that Malaika’s is a generation of apolitical and desensitized people.

    Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily. The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps. Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce. Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare benefits, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions• How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era• How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are finally showing signs of Hardening• The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America• Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.From the Hardcover edition.

    As part of a stinging critique of the Democratic Party, Miller outlines key positions on important issues that can again make the party relevant for the entire nation. From tax cuts to welfare, gun control to the environment, the arts to education, immigration to terrorism, Miller identifies values that make sense to a growing majority of Americans. Miller�s candid analysis of the campaigns of Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton further underscores his conclusion that the Democratic Party can no longer field a serious presidential challenge. Many party loyalists will not like what Senator Miller writes; yet his credentials are beyond question, for few Democrats have worked longer or stronger for the party and its candidates. Zell Miller has served in an elective office in each of the last six decades. When he left office as governor after two terms, he had an 85 percent approval rating, prompting the Washington Post to call him the most popular governor in the country. After getting to Washington, he became President Bush�s biggest Democratic supporter, but steadfastly refused to switch parties. A National Party No More is a firsthand account from the enigmatic senator who has confounded his Democratic colleagues. Driven by conscience and common sense, Senator Miller names the self-destructive direction of his party and stubbornly pulls the Democratic family toward reform.

    Tom Paine was enamored of early socialists, Horace Greeley employed Karl Marx as a correspondent, and Helen Keller was an avowed socialist. The “S” Word gives Americans back a crucial aspect of their past and makes a forthright case for socialist ideas today.

    Walter Bell (1880-1954), known as Karamojo Bell, was a Scottish adventurer, big game hunter in East Africa, soldier, decorated fighter pilot, sailor, writer, and painter.Famous for being one of the most successful ivory hunters of his time, Bell was an advocate of the importance of shooting accuracy and shot placement with smaller calibre rifles, over the use of heavy large-bore rifles for big African game. He improved his shooting skills by careful dissection and study of the anatomy of the skulls of the elephants he shot. He even perfected the clean shooting of elephants from the extremely difficult position of being diagonally behind the target; this shot became known as the Bell Shot.Although chiefly known for his exploits in Africa, Bell also traveled to North America and New Zealand, sailed windjammers, and saw service in South Africa during the Boer War, and flew in the Royal Flying Corps in East Africa, Greece and France during World War I.

    

    A compelling novel that shows how one life can change many, in spite of dangerous and seemingly immutable obstacles.When Fiona Sweeney tells her family she wants to do something that matters, they do not expect her to go to Africa to help start a traveling library. But that is where Fiona chooses to make her mark: in the arid bush of northeastern Kenya, among tiny, far-flung communities, nearly unknown and lacking roads and schools, where people live daily with drought, hunger, and disease. In The Camel Bookmobile, Fi travels to settlements where people have never held a book in their hands. Her goal is to help bring Dr. Seuss, Homer, Tom Sawyer, and Hemingway to a largely illiterate and semi-nomadic populace. However, because the donated books are limited in number and the settlements are many, the library initiates a tough fine: if anyone fails to return a book, the bookmobile will stop coming. Though her motives are good, Fi doesn't understand the people she seeks to help. Encumbered by her Western values, she finds herself in the midst of several struggles within the community of Mididima. There the bookmobile's presence sparks a feud between those who favor modernization and those who fear the loss of the traditional way of life in the African bush. The feud heightens when one young man—"Scar Boy"—doesn't return his books. As promised, the library stops all visits, but Fi goes to the settlement alone, determined to recover what has been lost. Evocative, seamless, and haunting, The Camel Bookmobile is a powerful saga that challenges our fears of the unknown. It is a story that captures the riddles and calamities that often occur when two cultures collide. It follows an American librarian who travels to Africa to give meaning to her life, and ultimately loses a piece of her heart. In the end, this compelling novel shows how one life can change many, in spite of dangerous and seemingly immutable obstacles.

    Wilde argues that under capitalism the majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism-are forced, indeed, so to spoil them: instead of realizing their true talents, they waste their time solving the social problems caused by capitalism, without taking their common cause away. Thus, caring people seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see in poverty, but their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it because, the proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible.

    She made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and resigned from the Dutch Parliament.Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished political superstar and champion of free speech as well as the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries ruled largely by despots. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Under constant threat, demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from family and clan, she refuses to be silenced.Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali’s story tells how a bright little girl evolves out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no other book could be more timely or more significant.

    Otpor’s methods . . . have been adopted by democracy movements around the world. The Egyptian opposition used them to topple Hosni Mubarak. In Lebanon, the Serbs helped the Cedar Revolution extricate the country from Syrian control. In Maldives, their methods were the key to overthrowing a dictator who had held power for thirty years. In many other countries, people have used what Canvas teaches to accomplish other political goals, such as fighting corruption or protecting the environment.”—The New York Times“A clear, well-constructed, and easily applicable set of principles for any David facing any Goliath (sans slingshot, of course) . . . By the end of Blueprint, the idea that a punch is no match for a punch line feels like anything but a joke.”—The Boston Globe“An entertaining primer on the theory and practice of peaceful protest.”—The Guardian “With this wonderful book, Srdja Popovic is inspiring ordinary people facing injustice and oppression to use this tool kit to challenge their oppressors and create something much better. When I was growing up, we dreamed that young people could bring down those who misused their power and create a more just and democratic society. For Srdja Popovic, living in Belgrade in 1998, this same dream was potentially a much more dangerous idea. But with an extraordinarily courageous group of students that formed Otpor!, Srdja used imagination, invention, cunning, and lots of humor to create a movement that not only succeeded in toppling the brutal dictator Slobodan Milošević but has become a blueprint for nonviolent revolution around the world. Srdja rules!”—Peter Gabriel   “Blueprint for Revolution is not only a spirited guide to changing the world but a breakthrough in the annals of advice for those who seek justice and democracy. It asks (and not heavy-handedly): As long as you want to change the world, why not do it joyfully? It’s not just funny. It’s seriously funny. No joke.”—Todd Gitlin, author of The Sixties and Occupy Nation

    Heidi Holland's tireless investigation begins with her having dinner with Mugabe, the freedom fighter, and ends in a searching interview with Zimbabwe's president more than 30 years later. The author charts Mugabe's gradual self-destruction, and uncovers the complicity of some of the most respectable international players in the Zimbabwe tragedy. Probing the mystery of Africa's loyalty to one of its worst dictators, Holland explores the contradictions that cloud the life of a man who had embodied the continent's promise.

    Although the rise of Jeremy Corbyn is to be attributed to more than hard-left entrism, to some within the party, Crick's book must seem like a lesson from history.Militant was a secret Trotskyite organisation that consistently denied being a party, though at its peak in the mid-1980s it could boast around 8,000 members, all of whom also belonged to the Labour Party. Militant operated clandestinely inside the Labour Party, edging out moderates at grass-roots level and recruiting people to its own ranks. Whilst eventually most of its leaders were expelled, it caused damaging rifts within Labour. Crick's book explores the origins, organisation and aims of Militant. It also explores the famous boss politics of Derek Hatton and Militant in Liverpool, and the party hierarchy's determined and ultimately successful attempts to squash the tendency.An important historical document, it is today seen as a field guide to how hard-left factions can infiltrate the Labour party, with some in the centre of the party allegedly urging its supporters to treat the long unavailable book as a 'war manual'.

    And yet, despite its epic proportions, it has received little sustained media attention. In this deeply reported book, Jason Stearns vividly tells the story of this misunderstood conflict through the experiences of those who engineered and perpetrated it. He depicts village pastors who survived massacres, the child soldier assassin of President Kabila, a female Hutu activist who relives the hunting and methodical extermination of fellow refugees, and key architects of the war that became as great a disaster as--and was a direct consequence of--the genocide in neighboring Rwanda. Through their stories, he tries to understand why such mass violence made sense, and why stability has been so elusive.Through their voices, and an astonishing wealth of knowledge and research, Stearns chronicles the political, social, and moral decay of the Congolese State.

    It clearly serves the 1% far, far better than what it is doing to the vast mass of the people.Marx was a social critic for whom capitalism was not the end of human history. It was just the latest phase and badly needed the transition to something better. We offer this essay now because of the power and usefulness today of Marx’s criticism of the capitalist economic system.