As much as unemployment, economic stagnation, and social deprivation exacerbate the ongoing turmoil in the banlieues, the root of the problem lies elsewhere: in the continuing fallout from Europe's colonial era. Combining a fascinating and compulsively readable mix of history, literature, and politics with his years of personal experience visiting the banlieues and countries across the Arab world, especially Algeria, Hussey attempts to make sense of the present situation. In the course of teasing out the myriad interconnections between past and present in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Beirut, and Western Europe, The French Intifada shows that the defining conflict of the twenty-first century will not be between Islam and the West but between two dramatically different experiences of the world—the colonizers and the colonized.

    In Saviors and Survivors, Mahmood Mamdani explains how the conflict in Darfur began as a civil war (1987—89) between nomadic and peasant tribes over fertile land in the south, triggered by a severe drought that had expanded the Sahara Desert by more than sixty miles in forty years; how British colonial officials had artificially tribalized Darfur, dividing its population into “native” and “settler” tribes and creating homelands for the former at the expense of the latter; how the war intensified in the 1990s when the Sudanese government tried unsuccessfully to address the problem by creating homelands for tribes without any. The involvement of opposition parties gave rise in 2003 to two rebel movements, leading to a brutal insurgency and a horrific counterinsurgency–but not to genocide, as the West has declared.Mamdani also explains how the Cold War exacerbated the twenty-year civil war in neighboring Chad, creating a confrontation between Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi (with Soviet support) and the Reagan administration (allied with France and Israel) that spilled over into Darfur and militarized the fighting. By 2003, the war involved national, regional, and global forces, including the powerful Western lobby, who now saw it as part of the War on Terror and called for a military invasion dressed up as “humanitarian intervention.”Incisive and authoritative, Saviors and Survivors will radically alter our understanding of the crisis in Darfur.

    This was a nation on the eve on independence, a land scorched by sun, by years of bitter war. In these perilous circumstances, Peter Capstick commences what is surely the most thrilling safari of his stories career. He takes the reader to the stark landscape that makes up the Bushmen's tribal territories. There, facing all kinds of risks, members of the chase pursue their quarry in a land of legend and myth. the result is an exciting big-game adventure whose underlying themes relate directly to the international headlines of today.In this first person adventure, Capstick spins riveting tales from his travels and reports on the Bushmen's culture, their political persecution, and the Stone Age life of Africa's original hunter-gatherers. In addition, the author explains the economic benefits of the sportsman's presence, and how ethical hunting is a tool for game protection and management on the continent.Not since Peter Capstick's Africa has the author taken the reader along on safari. In this superbly illustrated book, Capstick returns to the veld with an ace video cameraman and leading African wildlife photographer Dr. M. Philip Kahl. one hundred of Dr. Kahl's striking color photos capture perfectly life and death in the "land of thirst."

    Now he’s settled on the Texas coast, working a ranch as the partner of his old friend Tom Kittery—and finding himself in the middle of a feud between Kittery and a neighboring family. But the danger from outside is nothing compared to the threat within, as Duvarney suspects Kittery’s woman isn’t all she appears to be. Tap may have to go to war again. But this time will it be with his closest friend?The First Fast DrawEast Texas wasn’t much of a home for Cullen Baker. Few liked him, and some even tried to kill him. Yet after three years of wandering, he’s back to farm the land that is rightfully his. But Cullen’s neighbors have long memories, and his worst adversary has teamed up with a vicious outlaw. With enemies closing in on all sides and threatening the woman he loves, Cullen will have to be faster than lightning—and twice as deadly—just to survive.From the Paperback edition.

    Kaplan is one of our leading international journalists, someone who can explain the most complicated and volatile regions and show why they’re relevant to our world. In Surrender or Starve, Kaplan illuminates the fault lines in the Horn of Africa, which is emerging as a crucial region for America’s ongoing war on terrorism. Reporting from Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Eritrea, Kaplan examines the factors behind the famine that ravaged the region in the 1980s, exploring the ethnic, religious, and class conflicts that are crucial for understanding the region today. He offers a new foreword and afterword that show how the nations have developed since the famine, and why this region will only grow more important to the United States. Wielding his trademark ability to blend on-the-ground reporting and cogent analysis, Robert D. Kaplan introduces us to a fascinating part of the world, one that it would behoove all of us to know more about.

    The core content of the major GCSE specifications in this subject is covered through explanation and carefully-selected course material. The most popular options or depth studies from each specification are covered in detail. There are questions, activities and focus tasks throughout to: deepen understanding of the content; develop evaluative and investigative skills; help students become more independent learners; and support examination preparation.

    Figuring that the first step to solving a problem is understanding it, he journeys north into the war zone, interviewing terrorists, generals, and heroin dealers along the way.He discovers an island of beauty and abundance ground down by three decades of war. As he travels north through Colombo, Kandy, and the damaged city of Jaffna, Meadows gives his riveting take on the war. Known for child conscription and drawn-out torture methods, he explains, the Tamil Tigers also invented suicide bombing and were the first to lace together terrorists and financiers into international networks of militant uprising.In Sri Lanka, Meadows discovers a deep view into an ancient culture. Along the way, he learns to trap an elephant, weave rope from coconut husks, and cast out devils, and he actually has tea with a few terrorists. This is the inspiring story of his journey and an enlightening meditation on the interconnectedness of globalization, the media, and modern terrorism.

    The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world’s greatest and most brazen smugglers. In 2012, thousands of Al Qaeda militants from northwest Africa seized control of most of Mali, including Timbuktu. They imposed Sharia law, chopped off the hands of accused thieves, stoned to death unmarried couples, and threatened to destroy the great manuscripts. As the militants tightened their control over Timbuktu, Haidara organized a dangerous operation to sneak all 350,000 volumes out of the city to the safety of southern Mali. Over the past twenty years, journalist Joshua Hammer visited Timbuktu numerous times and is uniquely qualified to tell the story of Haidara’s heroic and ultimately successful effort to outwit Al Qaeda and preserve Mali’s—and the world’s—literary patrimony. Hammer explores the city’s manuscript heritage and offers never-before-reported details about the militants’ march into northwest Africa. But above all, The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu is an inspiring account of the victory of art and literature over extremism.

    

    One of the world’s longest-lived religious rites, having continued without break for fourteen hundred years, it is, like all things Islamic, shrouded in mystery for Westerners. In The Hadj, Michael Wolfe, an American who converted to Islam, recounts his own journey a pilgrim, and in doing so brings readers close to the heart of what the pilgrimage means to a member of the religion that claims one-sixth of the world’s population. Not since Sir Richard Burton’s account of the pilgrimage to Mecca over one hundred years ago has a Western writer described the Hadj in such fascinating detail.

    Their choices affect their families, the people they love, and the course of their lives. Their stories start before the events in Sudan touch them, following them through challenges and triumphs, as they rebuild their lives. What they have in common with the rest of us is that their journeys are about finding out what kind of people they are: Should they try to draw strength from their anger or should they let it go? Is it better to stick with what you know or find the courage to change?

    In the light of new knowledge and the ever-increasing interest in African religions, this popular introduction has now been revised and updated to include:a section on African proverbs, showing the religious and ethical insights handed down through oral tradition; new photographs reflecting the spread of African religions across the African continent; and a fully expanded reading list.

    Suitable for both scholars and the general reader, it unrolls one of the richest and most instructive panoramas in history, telling with insight the story of the rise of Islam in the Middle Ages, its conquests, its empire, its time of greatness and of decay. For this revised tenth edition, Walid Khalidi's timely preface emphasises that now, more than ever, this magisterial work is of vital importance to the on-going attempts to bridge the Arab/Western cultural divide.

    In just over 100 years following the death of Mohammed in 632, Arabs had subjugated a territory with an east-west expanse greater than the Roman Empire. They did it in about one-half the time. By the mid-8th century, Arab armies had conquered the 1000-year-old Persian Empire, reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a city-state based around Constantinople, and destroyed the Visigoth kingdom of Spain. The cultural and linguistic effects of this early Islamic expansion reverberate today. This is the first popular English-language account in many years of this astonishing remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh Kennedy’s sweeping narrative reveals how the Arab armies conquered almost everything in their path, and brings to light the unique characteristics of Islamic rule. One of the few academic historians with a genuine talent for story telling, Kennedy offers a compelling mix of larger-than-life characters, fierce battles, and the great clash of civilizations and religions.

    British High Commissioner Sir Henry Bartle-Frere seeks to dismantle the powerful neighbouring kingdom of the Zulus and uses an incursion along the disputed border as his justification for war. He issues an impossible ultimatum to the Zulu king, Cetshwayo, demanding he disband his armies and pay massive reparations. With a heavy heart, the king prepares his nation for war against their former allies. Leading the invasion is Lieutenant General Sir Frederic Thesiger, Baron Chelmsford, a highly experienced officer fresh off a decisive triumph over the neighbouring Xhosa tribes. He and Frere are convinced that a quick victory over the Zulus will negate any repercussions from the home government for launching what is, in essence, an illegal war. Recently arrived to South Africa are newly-recruited Privates Arthur Wilkinson and Richard Lowe; members of C Company, 1/24th Regiment of Foot under the venerable Captain Reginald Younghusband. Eager for adventure, they are prepared to do their duty both for the Empire and for their friends. As Frere’s ultimatum expires, the army of British redcoats and allied African auxiliaries crosses the uMzinyathi River at Rorke’s Drift into Zululand. Ten days later, the British and Zulus will meet their destiny at the base of a mountain called Isandlwana.