He’s had dinner with oligarchs and meetings with foreign royalty, spent nights streetwalking and sleeping rough; he’s heard stories of heart-breaking failure, but also witnessed extraordinary acts of compassion, hope and the triumph of love.

    After rallying non-Urdu speaking leaders around him, Jinnah imposed a unitary definition of the new nation state that obliterated linguistic diversity. This centralisation - 'justified' by the Indian threat - fostered centrifugal forces that resulted in Bengali secessionism in 1971 and Baloch, as well as Mohajir, separatisms today. Concentration of power in the hands of the establishment remained the norm, and while authoritarianism peaked under military rule, democracy failed to usher in reform, and the rule of law remained fragile at best under Zulfikar Bhutto and later Nawaz Sharif. While Jinnah and Ayub Khan regarded religion as a cultural marker, since their time the Islamists have gradually prevailed. They benefited from the support of General Zia, while others, including sectarian groups, cashed in on their struggle against the establishment to woo the disenfranchised. Today, Pakistan faces existential challenges ranging from ethnic strife to Islamism, two sources of instability which hark back to elite domination. But the resilience of the country and its people, the resolve of the judiciary and hints of reform in the army may open a new and more stable chapter in its history.

    Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy. Just as William Whyte's 1956 classic The Organization Man showed how the organizational ethos of that age permeated every aspect of life, Florida describes a society in which the creative ethos is increasingly dominant. Millions of us are beginning to work and live much as creative types like artists and scientists always have-with the result that our values and tastes, our personal relationships, our choices of where to live, and even our sense and use of time are changing. Leading the shift are the nearly 38 million Americans in many diverse fields who create for a living-the Creative Class. The Rise of the Creative Class chronicles the ongoing sea of change in people's choices and attitudes, and shows not only what's happening but also how it stems from a fundamental economic change. The Creative Class now comprises more than thirty percent of the entire workforce. Their choices have already had a huge economic impact. In the future they will determine how the workplace is organized, what companies will prosper or go bankrupt, and even which cities will thrive or wither.

    In our communicative world, few modern catastrophes are concealed from the public eye. And yet, Ilan Pappe unveils, one such crime has been erased from the global public memory: the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1948. But why is it denied, and by whom? The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine offers an investigation of this mystery.

    It was the longest voyage known to history. The little ships were pushed beyond their limits, and their crews were racked by storms and devastated by disease. However, their greatest enemy was neither nature nor even the sheer dread of venturing into unknown worlds that existed on maps populated by coiled, toothy sea monsters. With bloodred Crusader crosses emblazoned on their sails, the explorers arrived in the heart of the Muslim East at a time when the old hostilities between Christianity and Islam had risen to a new level of intensity. In two voyages that spanned six years, Vasco da Gama would fight a running sea battle that would ultimately change the fate of three continents.An epic tale of spies, intrigue, and treachery; of bravado, brinkmanship, and confused and often comical collisions between cultures encountering one another for the first time; Holy War also offers a surprising new interpretation of the broad sweep of history. Identifying Vasco da Gama’s arrival in the East as a turning point in the centuries-old struggle between Islam and Christianity—one that continues to shape our world—Holy War reveals the unexpected truth that both Vasco da Gama and his archrival, Christopher Columbus, set sail with the clear purpose of launching a Crusade whose objective was to reach the Indies; seize control of its markets in spices, silks, and precious gems from Muslim traders; and claim for Portugal or Spain, respectively, all the territories they discovered. Vasco da Gama triumphed in his mission and drew a dividing line between the Muslim and Christian eras of history—what we in the West call the medieval and the modern ages. Now that the world is once again tipping back East, Holy War offers a key to understanding age-old religious and cultural rivalries resurgent today.

    

    Without countervailing voices, a better world can never materialise. Without countervailing voices, wells will still be dug and bridges will still be built, but only for the few. Food will still be grown, but it will not reach the mouths of the poor. New medicines will be developed, but they will be inaccessible to many of those in need.” George Monbiot is one of the most vocal, and eloquent, critics of the current consensus. How Did We Get into This Mess?, based on his powerful journalism, assesses the state we are now in: the devastation of the natural world, the crisis of inequality, the corporate takeover of nature, our obsessions with growth and profit and the decline of the political debate over what to do. While his diagnosis of the problems in front of us is clear-sighted and reasonable, he also develops solutions to challenge the politics of fear. How do we stand up to the powerful when they seem to have all the weapons? What can we do to prepare our children for an uncertain future? Controversial, clear but always rigorously argued, How Did We Get into This Mess? makes a persuasive case for change in our everyday lives, our politics and economics, the ways we treat each other and the natural world.

    From the Battery's traces of the early port to Washington Square's ghosts of executed convicts and well-heeled Knickerbockers; from the Five Points, once the most dangerous and squalid slum in America, to the mansions of the robber barons on "the Fifth Avenue"; from the Bowery of the 1860s, the vibrant heart of the city's theater world, to the Village of the 1960s, with its festival-like street life, this is downtown as we've never seen it before. Hamill weaves his own memories of Manhattan with the liveliest moments from its past, and points out the hints of that past living on in the city of today, fueling the ever-present nostalgia of its inhabitants.Hamill introduces us to the New Yorkers who have left indelible marks: Peter Stuyvesant and John Jacob Astor, Stanford White and George Templeton Strong, Edith Wharton and Henry James, Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, W. H. Auden and Allen Ginsberg, Boss Tweed and Fiorello La Guardia, Jimi Hendrix and Thelonious Monk, and scores of others. And he takes us to the eateries, saloons, theaters, movie houses, bookstores, and street corners they, and he, once frequented, whether still standing or existing only in memory.Through the city's transformations, the pulse of Pete Hamill's brilliant voice melds with the pulse that drives New York, that mixture of daring, greed, anger, rebellion, hope, entrepreneurialism, and longing that never fades. Written by native son who has lived through some of New York City's most historic moments, Downtown is an extraordinary celebration of the magnificent, haunted place that Hamill continues to call home, and that people from all over the country and the world have come to call their own.

    He wanted to learn Arabic, explore Cairo's neighborhoods, and visit the legendary archaeological digs of Upper Egypt. After his years of covering China for The New Yorker, friends warned him Egypt would be a much quieter place. But not long before he arrived, the Egyptian Arab Spring had begun, and now the country was in chaos.In the midst of the revolution, Hessler often traveled to digs at Amarna and Abydos, where locals live beside the tombs of kings and courtiers, a landscape that they call simply al-Madfuna "the Buried." He and his wife set out to master Arabic, striking up a friendship with their instructor, a cynical political sophisticate. They also befriended Peter's translator, a gay man struggling to find happiness in Egypt's homophobic culture. A different kind of friendship was formed with the neighborhood garbage collector, an illiterate but highly perceptive man named Sayyid, whose access to the trash of Cairo would be its own kind of archaeological excavation. Hessler also met a family of Chinese small-business owners in the lingerie trade; their view of the country proved a bracing counterpoint to the West's conventional wisdom.Through the lives of these and other ordinary people in a time of tragedy and heartache, and through connections between contemporary Egypt and its ancient past, Hessler creates an astonishing portrait of a country and its people. What emerges is a book of uncompromising intelligence and humanity--the story of a land in which a weak state has collapsed but its underlying society remains in many ways painfully the same. A worthy successor to works like Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey Falcon and Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines, The Buried bids fair to be recognized as one of the great books of our time.

    By the thousands, they have flooded into the Islamic State's stronghold in Syria and Iraq and carried out attacks under its black banner in nearly every continent. How has the Islamic State surpassed al-Qaeda to become the most popular jihadist group on the planet? Its chilling mission is very specific: bring the immediate return of the Islamic empire and look ahead to the imminent end of days. These two powerful religious ideas, combined with a highly intelligent, meticulously organized membership, account for its popularity and shape its behavior. Its goal is not only to revive this Islamic empire but also usher in the End of Times--a concept that means ISIS anticipates a final battle that will restore the Muslim community to its medieval glory days. And they will not stop until they achieve their mission.Based almost entirely on primary sources in Arabic-including exclusive al-Qaeda memos that have not been made public before-The ISIS Apocalypse by William McCants explores how these two powerful ideas shaped the Islamic State's past and foreshadows its dark future, as well as seeks to explain the popularity of the Islamic State and its violent, terrifying behavior.

    If you’re looking for the outer orbits of America, come to Florida, and if you seek the Sunshine State’s funky-drumbeat fringe, you can do no better than Lynn Waddell.”—Tim Dorsey, New York Times best-selling author “Waddell takes readers to Florida’s wild side, where strippers, swingers, bikers, exotic animals, and carnies enjoy sun-kissed lives in America’s strangest state.”?Trevor Aaronson, author of The Terror Factory: Inside the FBI’s Manufactured War on Terrorism “Lynn Waddell’s riveting you-are-there reporting lives at the intersection where Florida’s wacky subcultures and seamy undersides meet up. When you read this book, make sure you’re standing over carpet—that way you won’t hurt your jaw from dropping it so many times.”—Craig Pittman, author of The Scent of Scandal: Greed, Betrayal, and the World’s Most Beautiful Orchid “A fast, fascinating read. Waddell delivers ten surprising subcultures you might not dare visit on your own.”?Lyn Millner, Florida Gulf Coast UniversityFlorida has a titillating underbelly that few tourists ever see. Beyond the theme parks and the beaches lies a periphery most residents know about but—out of decorum or discomfort?prefer not to discuss. In Fringe Florida, Lynn Waddell explores the exotic, sensational, and sometimes illicit worlds of the oddest state in the nation.Waddell takes the reader on a colorful journey to meet the most unconventional of Floridians in unbelievable and spectacular places. At Fetish Con, she befriends furries and pony girls. She travels to Cassadaga, the oldest active Spiritualist community in the South, where trained mediums converse with the dead, and to the Holy Land Experience theme park in Orlando, where one can eat a hot dog while watching a reenactment of the Crucifixion. She interviews the founder of the Leather & Lace Motorcycle Club, a Daytona Beach-area grandmother who hosts the club’s annual gathering, welcoming scores of lady bikers to camp out on the lawn of her subdivision home. At an Animal Amnesty Day outside Busch Gardens, Waddell meets exotic reptile owners who give up their beloved-but no-longer-manageable pets and others who vie to take home the cast-offs.If you’ve ever wanted to parade around on a pimped-out swamp buggy amidst a couple thousand beer-swigging mud boggers or fall asleep with a python hissing in your ear, been tempted to bring a Capuchin monkey in a stroller to a Little League game, or contemplated sitting on the beach waiting to be picked up by a UFO but couldn’t quite bring yourself to such extremes, Fringe Florida is for you.

    Still essential and still timely ten years after its original publication, The Shia Revival provides a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis and sheds crucial light on its modern-day consequences. A new epilogue elucidates the rise of ISIS and ongoing tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

    This is the Paris you never knew. From the Revolution to the present, Graham Robb has distilled a series of astonishing true narratives, all stranger than fiction. A young artillery lieutenant, strolling through the Palais-Royal, observes disapprovingly the courtesans plying their trade. A particular woman catches his eye; nature takes its course. Later that night Napoleon Bonaparte writes a meticulous account of his first sexual encounter. An aristocratic woman, fleeing the Louvre, takes a wrong turn and loses her way in the nameless streets of the Left Bank. For want of a map—there were no reliable ones at the time—Marie-Antoinette will go to the guillotine. Baudelaire, Baron Haussmann, the real-life Mimi of La Bohème, Proust, Charles de Gaulle (who is suspected of having faked an assassination attempt on himself in Notre Dame) —these and many more are Robb’s cast of characters. The result is a resonant, intimate history with the power of a great novel. 16 pages of illustrations.

    More than thirty years after Khomeini’s return to Tehran and the subsequent rebirth of Iran as an Islamic Republic, Khomeini’s Ghost offers an intimate, richly detailed portrait of the fundamentalist leader and architect of Iran’s adversarial relationship with the West—a man whose legacy has influenced history and policy, and will continue to do so for generations to come.

    In the dry language of development reports and economic projections, the true misery of the 312 million who live below the poverty line, or the 26 million displaced by various projects, or the 13 million who suffer from tuberculosis gets overlooked. In this thoroughly researched study of the poorest of the poor, we get to see how they manage, what sustains them, and the efforts, often ludicrous, to do something for them. The people who figure in this book typify the lives and aspirations of a large section of Indian society, and their stories present us with the true face of development.