Let Every Nation Know: John F. Kennedy in His Own Words


Robert Dallek
    Combining a remarkable audio CD of Kennedy's most famous speeches, debates and press conferences with the insights of two of America's preeminent historians, the result is a unique look at the world-changing words and presidency of John F. Kennedy. Robert Dallek, author of the #1 bestselling biography An Unfinished Life, and Terry Golway, author of Washington's General, bring to life the soaring oratory, marvelous wit and the intense drama of Kennedy's words and the events they evoke. ?I had forgotten just how powerful these speeches were but the CD brings them to life once more and Dallek and Golway have done a masterful job of putting them into context.?-Bob Schieffer, CBS News

The Terrorist's Son: A Story of Choice


Zak Ebrahim - 2014
    While in prison, Nosair helped plan the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. In one of his infamous video messages, Osama bin Laden urged the world to “Remember El-Sayyid Nosair.”For Zak Ebrahim, a childhood amongst terrorism was all he knew. After his father’s incarceration, his family moved often, and as the perpetual new kid in class, he faced constant teasing and exclusion. Yet, though his radicalized father and uncles modeled fanatical beliefs, to Ebrahim something never felt right. To the shy, awkward boy, something about the hateful feelings just felt unnatural.In this book, Ebrahim dispels the myth that terrorism is a foregone conclusion for people trained to hate. Based on his own remarkable journey, he shows that hate is always a choice—but so is tolerance. Though Ebrahim was subjected to a violent, intolerant ideology throughout his childhood, he did not become radicalized. Ebrahim argues that people conditioned to be terrorists are actually well positioned to combat terrorism, because of their ability to bring seemingly incompatible ideologies together in conversation and advocate in the fight for peace. Ebrahim argues that everyone, regardless of their upbringing or circumstances, can learn to tap into their inherent empathy and embrace tolerance over hatred. His original, urgent message is fresh, groundbreaking, and essential to the current discussion about terrorism.

Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space


John R. Bowen - 2006
    Why the French Don't Like Headscarves explains why headscarves on schoolgirls caused such a furor, and why the furor yielded this law. Making sense of the dramatic debate from his perspective as an American anthropologist in France at the time, John Bowen writes about everyday life and public events while also presenting interviews with officials and intellectuals, and analyzing French television programs and other media.Bowen argues that the focus on headscarves came from a century-old sensitivity to the public presence of religion in schools, feared links between public expressions of Islamic identity and radical Islam, and a media-driven frenzy that built support for a headscarf ban during 2003-2004. Although the defense of la�cit� (secularity) was cited as the law's major justification, politicians, intellectuals, and the media linked the scarves to more concrete social anxieties--about communalism, political Islam, and violence toward women.Written in engaging, jargon-free prose, Why the French Don't Like Headscarves is the first comprehensive and objective analysis of this subject, in any language, and it speaks to tensions between assimilation and diversity that extend well beyond France's borders.

The Reason Revolution: Atheism, Secular Humanism, and the Collapse of Religion


Dan Dana - 2014
    It focuses squarely on the inherent irrationality of religion, and reveals its utter irreconcilability with science. Offering several "reconciliation theories" to people of faith, it forces every reader to make a choice.Contents The Reason Revolution in historical context Questioning belief Reasons for skepticism Secular humanism as an alternative worldview Political implications of atheism The collapse of religion Hopeful predictions Reconciliation theories Comments by clergyCall to action

Called to the Fire: A Witness for God in Mississippi; The Story of Dr. Charles Johnson


Chet Bush - 2013
    As the key African American witness to take the stand in the trial famously dubbed the Mississippi Burning case by the FBI, Dr. Charles Johnson, a young preacher fresh out of Bible College, became a voice for justice and equality in the segregated south. Unwittingly thrust into the heart of a national tragedy - the murder of three civil rights activists - Dr. Johnson overcame fear and adversity to become a leader in the civil rights movement. He played a vital role for the Federal Justice Department, offering clarity to the event that led to the Voting Rights Act of 1965. And, in a shocking turn of events, Johnson offered a path of reconciliation for one of the convicted killers. A story of love, conviction, adversity, and redemption, Called to the Fire is a riveting account of a life in pursuit of the call of God and the fight for justice and equality.

The Underground Girls of Kabul: in Search of a Hidden Resistance in Afghanistan


Jenny Nordberg - 2014
    A bacha posh (literally translated from Dari as "dressed up like a boy") is a third kind of child – a girl temporarily raised as a boy and presented as such to the outside world. Jenny Nordberg, the reporter who broke the story of this phenomenon for the New York Times, constructs a powerful and moving account of those secretly living on the other side of a deeply segregated society where women have almost no rights and little freedom. The Underground Girls of Kabul is anchored by vivid characters who bring this remarkable story to life: Azita, a female parliamentarian who sees no other choice but to turn her fourth daughter Mehran into a boy; Zahra, the tomboy teenager who struggles with puberty and refuses her parents' attempts to turn her back into a girl; Shukria, now a married mother of three after living for twenty years as a man; and Nader, who prays with Shahed, the undercover female police officer, as they both remain in male disguise as adults. At the heart of this emotional narrative is a new perspective on the extreme sacrifices of Afghan women and girls against the violent backdrop of America's longest war. Divided into four parts, the book follows those born as the unwanted sex in Afghanistan, but who live as the socially favored gender through childhood and puberty, only to later be forced into marriage and childbirth. The Underground Girls of Kabul charts their dramatic life cycles, while examining our own history and the parallels to subversive actions of people who live under oppression everywhere.

The Little Book of Philosophy: An Introduction to the Key Thinkers and Theories You Need to Know


Rachel Poulton - 2019
    Including accessible primers on: • The early Ancient Greek philosophers and the ‘big three’: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle • Key schools of philosophy and their impact on modern life • Insights into the main questions philosophers have explored over the years: Who am I? What is the meaning of life? Do I have free will? • Practical applications for the theories of Descartes, Kant, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Nietzsche and many more. This illuminating little book will introduce you to the key thinkers, themes and theories you need to know to understand how human ideas have sculpted the world we live in and the way we think today.

Fat Dogs and French Estates, Part 5


Beth Haslam - 2021
    In this fifth sparkling episode of the Fat Dogs series, they take on an accident-prone puppy, an impossible forest project and murderous pheasants. Renewed tangles with French authorities and an unexpected animal adoption add to their challenges.Join the pair as they hunt down rampant mushroomers, raise countless critters and build witches with knobbly knees in their eccentric corner of rural France.

Triple Sticks: Tales of a Few Young Men in the 1960s


Bernie Fipp - 2010
    The author assures us it is not!Three years before they came together, four young American men left their fraternities and college campuses for an adventure exceeding their imaginations. Wanting something more than the draft and unknown to each other, they chose Naval Aviation as the next step in their lives. Generally, they were better than their navy peers, all qualifying for high performance aircraft to be flown from steel decks over foreign seas. They would become the pointy end of the stick in aerial battles over North Vietnam, the most heavily defended patch of real estate in the history of aerial warfare. They were to do this in 1967, the year in which Naval Aviation experienced its greatest losses.These four young men, now Lieutenants Junior Grade, United States Navy, were ordered to Attack Squadron 34 to fly A4 Skyhawks into combat. They were assigned Junior Officer's stateroom 0111 aboard USS Intrepid, a venerable aircraft carrier with a distinguished history. This "bunkroom" better known to them as Triple Sticks was the repository for a log (in navy terms) or journal written by these four young aviators. Forty years later this log was the genesis of this memoir.In the lethal environment over the northern reaches of North Vietnam or ashore in the Officer's clubs and bars of Asia, the writing brings to life wonderful humor, bizarre behavior, vivid aerial battles, uncommon loyalty, anger, frustration and respect. One survived or did not according to his skill and luck.

Follow Me, Akhi: The Online World of British Muslims


Hussein Kesvani - 2019
    But as all our lives become increasingly entwined with our online presence, British Muslims are taking to social media to carve their own narratives and tell their own stories, challenging stereotypes along the way. Follow Me, Akhi explores how young Muslims in Britain are using the internet to determine their own religious identity, both within their communities and as part of the country they live in. Entering a world of Muslim dating apps, social media influencers, online preachers, and LGBTQ and ex-Muslim groups, journalist Hussein Kesvani explores how British Islam has evolved into a multi-dimensional cultural identity that goes well beyond the confines of the mosque. He shows how a new generation of Muslims who have grown up in the internet age use blogs, vlogging, and tweets to define their religion on their terms—something that could change the course of 'British Islam' forever.

The Rise of the Iron Men


Misha Glenny - 2020
    Free for members. You can download all 6 episodes to your Library now.©2020 Audible, Ltd. (P)2020 Audible, Ltd.

Molly Ivins: Letters to The Nation


Molly Ivins - 2013
    

Secrets of the Kingdom: The Inside Story of the Saudi-U.S. Connection


Gerald Posner - 2005
    In his new book, Secrets of the Kingdom, Posner exposes the undeniable truth about U.S.-Saudi relations–and how the Saudis’ influence on American business and politics poses a grave threat to our security.The result of an intensive two-year investigation, Secrets of the Kingdom penetrates the innermost layers of the shielded House of Saud and presents indisputable evidence of complicity and deceit at the highest levels–evidence that the 9/11 Commission, either deliberately or negligently, failed to consider. Using bank records and other previously undisclosed information, Posner unearths many disturbing truths and shattering revelations about the ties that bind the Saudi and U.S. governments, including• how countless failures in U.S. intelligence and law enforcement gave extraordinary preferential treatment to prominent Saudis living in the United States, including members of the bin Laden family, in the days after 9/11• a likely close connection between a powerful member of the House of Saud and Abu Zubeydah, the highest-ranking al-Qaeda operative captured so far by the United States• how the Saudi government has turned a blind eye to the role Saudi charities–including many controlled or supported by Kingdom officials– have played in bankrolling al-Qaeda and Islamic terror groups• the never-before-revealed Saudi and U.S. emergency plans in the event of a national crisis in the Kingdom, plans that could affect the security of the United States and the entire Middle EastSecrets of the Kingdom is an explosive study that will have a profound impact on both U.S. policy and Americans’ perception of their government and its extensive ties to a foreign power. Posner uncovers a disturbing picture of how two nations, despite their differing agendas, have become inextricably entwined.From the Hardcover edition.

Children Around the Prophet (SAW): How Muhammad (SAW) Raised the Young Companions


Hesham Al-Awadi - 2005
    In introducing parents and potential parents to the Prophetic example of dealing with children, Dr. Hesham Al-Awadi tackles the challenges and complexity of raising children, and the necessity to understand and cater for their needs. Throughout these lectures recorded at Birkbeck College, University of London, Dr. Al-Awadi, a renowned Seerah historian draws upon instances from the Prophet's (SAW) life in order to address the emotional, spiritual, moral, sexual, and social dimensions of raising children in today's society.

Lethal Warriors: When the New Band of Brothers Came Home


David Philipps - 2010
    The Band of Brothers had been deployed to the most violent places in Iraq, and some of the soldiers were suffering from what they had seen and done in combat. Without much time to recover, they were sent back to the front lines. After their second tour of duty, the battalion was renamed the Lethal Warriors, and, true to their name, the soldiers once again brought the violence home.Lethal Warriors brings to life the chilling true stories of these veterans—from their enlistment and multiple tours of duty to their struggles with ptsd and their failure to reintegrate in society. With piercing insight and employing his relentless investigative skills, journalist David Philipps shines a light not only to this particular unit, but also to the painful reality of ptsd as it rages throughout the country.By exploring the evolving the science and the stigma of war trauma throughout history—from "shell shock" to "battle fatigue" to "combat stress injuries"—Philipps shows that this problem has always existed and that, as the nature of warfare changes, it is only getting worse. In highlighting the inspiring stories of the resilient men and women in the armed forces who have the courage to confront the issue and offer a potential lifeline to the soldiers, Lethal Warriors challenges us to deal openly, honestly, and intelligently with the true costs of war.