If we really do get the government we deserve, On Mutiny might provoke a civilian rebellion.

    A riveting first draft of modern Indian history, Anticipating India interprets everything from the successes and failings of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh to the ascent of Rahul Gandhi, Narendra Modi and Arvind Kejriwal, from the forces that have deepened Indian federalism and constitutionalism to the public mood that keeps a check on excesses in the use of political power.Each chapter in Anticipating India, in its questioning of power, its use and abuse, carries within it ideas of India that challenge conventional wisdom, shatter stereotypes and, in the end, question our long-held assumptions of who we are as a nation and a people.

    Taking his own spiritual journey as a starting point, Professor Ayoub explores all aspects of Islam; from the Qur'an and Islamic law to the epic poetry of the Sufis; from the spread of Islam worldwide to reform movements in the US and Europe.

    However, this best-selling book is not simply a catalogue of these events. Rather it examines and compares the outward existential behaviour, along with its inward psychological reality, both of those who do not base their way of life on Prophetic guidance and those that do.

    Cricket had never meant so much. The West Indies had always had brilliant cricketers; it hadn’t always had brilliant cricket teams. But in 1974, a man called Clive Lloyd began to lead a side which would at last throw off the shackles that had hindered the region for centuries. Nowhere else had a game been so closely connected to a people’s past and their future hopes; nowhere else did cricket liberate a people like it did in the Caribbean.For almost two decades, Clive Lloyd and then Vivian Richards led the batsmen and bowlers who changed the way cricket was played and changed the way a whole nation – which existed only on a cricket pitch - saw itself. With their pace like fire and their scorching batting, these sons of cane-cutters and fishermen brought pride to a people which had been stifled by 300 years of slavery, empire and colonialism. Their cricket roused the Caribbean and antagonised the game’s traditionalists. Told by the men who made it happen and the people who watched it unfold, Fire in Babylon is the definitive story of the greatest team that sport has known.

     Theo Aronson's The Kaisers is the story of six people whose bitter differences were a microcosm of, and greatly influenced, a national conflict which echoed all round the world. Kaiser Wilhelm I, born 1797, King of Prussia 1861, proclaimed Emperor of all Germany 1871, died only in 1888 an autocratic, militaristic man of the eighteenth century completely opposed to the liberalizing ideas which swept Europe in his lifetime. In contrast his Empress, Augusta, was progressive in thought, open-minded in outlook, yet with all had a taste for the theatrical and pageantry of her royal status. The best of her was seen in their son, Kaiser Frederick III, who was Crown Prince for all but the last few cancer-torn weeks of his life. He personified the best of European liberalism of the nineteenth century. In this he was supported—many said unduly influenced by his energetic and vivacious English wife Victoria, Queen Victoria's eldest and 'Dearest Child', who brought to the marriage the enlightened ideals and hopes of her shrewd, practical mother and her far-seeing father, the Prince Consort. The tragedy, the tempting speculation of Germany's history, is that this couple reigned for only three months before Frederick III's death brought their son to the throne. Kaiser Wilhelm II, 'Kaiser Bill' of the first World War, was again the antithesis of everything his parents stood for. Queen Victoria's hopes that her grandson might be 'wise, sensible, courageous — liberal-minded — good and pure', could hardly have been more misplaced. The sixth, the dominating figure in the Hohenzollern story, is Prince Otto von Bismarck, the ruthless 'Iron Chancellor', virtual dictator of Germany for nearly thirty years. He served all three Kaisers, claiming with justification that on his shoulders he had carried the first to the Imperial throne—where he manipulated him to his will despite the hatred and manoeuvrings of the Empress Augusta. He feared the reign of the short-lived second Kaiser and feared more perhaps (and never missed an opportunity to disparage) the Empress Victoria and the constant, commonsense influence from England of her mother. (`That', he said ruefully after their one meeting, 'was a woman ! One could do business with her ! ') Their son he flattered, siding with him against his parents, and in so doing brought about his own downfall, when the vainglorious young man he had schooled as Crown Prince came as Kaiser to believe that he could do without his mentor. But for Europe it was too late, and the policies of one and the vanities of the other were already leading Europe helter-skelter into the holocaust of 'the Kaiser's War'. Theo Aronson's gifts as a writer have deservedly brought him high regard as a chronicler of the complex histories of Europe's great ruling Houses. Rarely have his talents been better employed than in this study of the comet-like rise and fall of the House of Hohenzollern, the House of the Kaisers of Germany. It is a story of bitter, almost continual conflict, yet even in what can now be seen as a path to inevitable destruction Mr. Aronson finds passages of light and shade that show the Hohenzollerns not simply as Wagnerian puppets posturing on a vast European stage, but people deserving of our understanding and compassion.

    The electrifying behind-the-scenes account of a year that brought Ireland to the brink and back - the inside story of Ireland’s struggle to contain Covid-19.Based on a wealth of original research and over a hundred interviews with cabinet members, public health officials, frontline workers, and ordinary people on whom the crisis exacted a personal toll, A State of Emergency is the incendiary untold story of Ireland’s response to the biggest public health emergency of the past century.Ranging from the halls of Government Buildings, where conflict between the new Cabinet and its public health advisors threatened to derail the official response, to the frontlines of the containment effort itself, where doctors, nurses, and the communities they served found themselves pushed to breaking point, A State of Emergency is a landmark work of journalism and a riveting insider account of the struggle to bring Ireland back from the brink.

    So hold your nose, kiss the babies, and just think how good you would look on a stamp.Now, before we go into your media responsibilities, you must understand the true history of political power, so you don't accidentally act on the naive idealism you are required to project to the general public.The reality of political power is very simple: bad farmers own crops and livestock -- good farmers own human beings...

    And in some cases, the word “assault” is quite literal. Katie Pavlich thinks the Democrats have run the conversation for too long—and is out to debunk the sacred cows of the so-called Republican War on Women. In the vein of fellow female pugilists Ann Coulter and Michele Malkin, Assault and Flattery exposes the truth about the Democratic stance toward women on every major current issue and in every liberal stronghold, including: abortion, self-defense, the myth of the women’s vote, Hollywood, academia, and more. Using original reporting and interviews, Pavlich deftly exposes the liberal heroes of the women’s movement to show us the frauds they really are—including such revered figures as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, often called the most pro-woman president in history. Assault and Flattery is a book about women, but it’s for fathers, husbands, sons, and boyfriends, too. As Katie Pavlich explains, what the Democratic Party is doing to women, it is doing to us all. By segregating us by gender, they’re harming our future.

    From gangs of gangsters to maniacs who massacre, meet the biggest baddies in history and discover how they tortured and terrified their way to the top. Find out whose savage speciality was nostril-splitting, which evil emperor served up guts in gold dishes, whose axe-murdering antics were turned into a ballet and much more. It's all you need to know about villains - all the gore and more!

    The book delves into the dilemmas that face modern cricket, such as ball-tampering, race and national identity.

    They were the rank underdogs and they swept to victory on an unprecedented tide of goodwill that washed over the nation. Only Martin Flanagan could bring to life this particular miracle. The club's two guiding spirits - captain Bob Murphy and coach Luke Beveridge - welcomed him in, Beveridge making available his match diaries, pre-match notes and video highlights. Flanagan interviewed every player, watched every match, talked with the trainers, the women in the football department, the fans who never miss a training session, the cheer squad.What Flanagan shows is that the Bulldogs found a new way to play partly because they found a new way to be a team - a new way to support each other, even a new way to be. A Wink from the Universe takes us into the heart of the community Luke Beveridge and Bob Murphy dreamt into being with the support of the Bulldog people around them. This is a classic of sportswriting - a book for fans of the club, and of the game, but also a book for anyone who wants to know how a group of people can will a miracle to happen.

    Helping to bring these forgotten figures into the light, Andrew Gimson's illuminating accounts are accompanied by sketches from Guardian sartirical cartoonist, Martin Rowson, making this the perfect gift for all lovers of history and politics.

    Three Weeks in October The Manhunt for the Serial Sniper(View amazon detail page)ASIN: B0044KZ458

    Showing how and why Soviet efforts to negotiate an end to the war came to nothing, Steele explains how negotiations today could put a stop to the tragedies that have afflicted Afghanistan for three decades.