Totem Salmon: Life Lessons from Another Species


Freeman House - 1999
    The book-call it the zen of salmon restoration-traces the evolution of the Mattole River Valley community in northern California as it learns to undo the results of rapacious logging practices; to invent ways to trap wild salmon for propagation; and to forge alliances between people who sometimes agree on only one thing-that there is nothing on earth like a Mattole king salmon. House writes from streamside: "I think I can hear through the cascades of sound a systematic plop, plop, plop, as if pieces of fruit are being dropped into the water. Sometimes this is the sound of a fish searching for the opening upstream; sometimes it is not. I breathe quietly and wait." Freeman House's writing about fish and fishing is erotic, deeply observed, and simply some of the best writing on the subject in recent literature. House tells the story of the annual fishing rituals of the indigenous peoples of the Klamath River in northern California, one that relies on little-known early ethnographic studies and on indigenous voices-a remarkable story of self-regulation that unites people and place. And his riffs on the colorful early history of American hatcheries, on property rights, and on the "happiness of the state" show precisely why he's considered a West Coast visionary.Petitions to list a dozen West Coast salmon runs under the provisions of the Endangered Species Act make saving salmon an issue poised to consume the Pacific West. "Never before, said Federal officials, has so much land or so many people been given notice that they will have to alter their lives to restore a wild species" (New York Times, 2/27/98). Totem Salmon is set to become the essential read for this newest chapter in our relations with other wild things.

History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith


Gilbert Rist - 1997
    Indeed, with all its hopes of a more just and materially prosperous world, development has fascinated societies in both North and South. Looking at this collective fancy in retrospect, Gilbert Rist shows the underlying similarities of its various theories and strategies, and their shared inability to transform the world. He argues persuasively that development has always been a kind of collective delusion which in reality has simply promoted a widening of market relations despite the good intentions of its advocates.Now this era is over. Globalisation has taken over. Former development promises have been shelved and replaced by a new but narrower slogan, 'the struggle against poverty'. Yet in spite of the failures of development, aggravated now by globalisation, we are told that growth -- which nobody would risk abandoning -- is still the only means of salvation. It is clear that the need for belief is stronger than any doubts about its actual wisdom.What, then, are the origins of this naive faith? Why have people put so much energy into proclaiming it and seeking to make it a reality? Why has it proved an illusion, and what future does it now have? These are some of the questions which this thoughtful and penetrating history of the concept of development explores.This book is an invitation to rethink contemporary problems and to prepare ourselves for what might be called the post-development era.

Steinheist: Markus Jooste, Steinhoff & SA's biggest corporate fraud


Rob Rose - 2018
    When this investors’ darling was exposed as a house of cards, tales of fraudulent accounting, a lavish lifestyle involving multimillion-rand racehorses and ructions in the ‘Stellenbosch mafia’ made headlines around the world. As regulators tally up the cost, 'Financial Mail' editor Rob Rose reveals the real inside story behind Steinhoff. Based on dozens of interviews with key players in South Africa, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands – and documents not yet public – Steinheist reveals: how Bruno Steinhoff formed the company by doing business in the Communist bloc and apartheid South Africa; how the ‘Markus myth’ started in the dusty streets of Ga-Rankuwa and grew thanks to a ‘bit of luck’ in a 1998 takeover; how Jooste insiders shifted nasty liabilities off Steinhoff’s balance sheet to secretive companies overseas in order to present a false picture of the profits; how Wiese was lucky to lose only R59bn and how Shoprite narrowly escaped getting caught in Steinhoff’s web; and what happened behind closed boardroom doors in the frantic week before Jooste resigned.

Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order


James Ferguson - 2006
    What, though, is really at stake in discussions about Africa, its problems, and its place in the world? And what should be the response of those scholars who have sought to understand not the “Africa” portrayed in broad strokes in journalistic accounts and policy papers but rather specific places and social realities within Africa?In Global Shadows the renowned anthropologist James Ferguson moves beyond the traditional anthropological focus on local communities to explore more general questions about Africa and its place in the contemporary world. Ferguson develops his argument through a series of provocative essays which open—as he shows they must—into interrogations of globalization, modernity, worldwide inequality, and social justice. He maintains that Africans in a variety of social and geographical locations increasingly seek to make claims of membership within a global community, claims that contest the marginalization that has so far been the principal fruit of “globalization” for Africa. Ferguson contends that such claims demand new understandings of the global, centered less on transnational flows and images of unfettered connection than on the social relations that selectively constitute global society and on the rights and obligations that characterize it.Ferguson points out that anthropologists and others who have refused the category of Africa as empirically problematic have, in their devotion to particularity, allowed themselves to remain bystanders in the broader conversations about Africa. In Global Shadows, he urges fellow scholars into the arena, encouraging them to find a way to speak beyond the academy about Africa’s position within an egregiously imbalanced world order.

Lydia's Open Door: Inside Mexico's Most Modern Brothel


Patty Kelly - 2008
    By delving into lives that would otherwise go unremarked, Kelly documents the modernization of the sex industry during the neoliberal era in the city of Tuxtla Gutiérrez and illustrates how state-regulated sex became part of a broader effort by government officials to bring modernity to Chiapas, one of Mexico's poorest and most conflicted states. Kelly's innovative approach locates prostitution in a political-economic context by treating it as work. Most valuably, she conveys her analysis through vivid portraits of the lives of the sex workers themselves and shows how the women involved are neither victims nor heroines.

Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds: Ebola and the Ravages of History


Paul Farmer - 2020
    . . If what we want in this moment is insight from this brilliant doctor about pandemics, he wants us to see that they do not occur in isolation. --Carolyn Kellogg, The Boston GlobeIn 2014, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea suffered the worst epidemic of Ebola in history. The brutal virus spread rapidly through a clinical desert where basic health-care facilities were few and far between. Causing severe loss of life and economic disruption, the Ebola crisis was a major tragedy of modern medicine. But why did it happen, and what can we learn from it?Paul Farmer, the internationally renowned doctor and anthropologist, experienced the Ebola outbreak firsthand--Partners in Health, the organization he founded, was among the international responders. In Fevers, Feuds, and Diamonds, he offers the first substantive account of this frightening, fast-moving episode and its implications. In vibrant prose, Farmer tells the harrowing stories of Ebola victims while showing why the medical response was slow and insufficient. Rebutting misleading claims about the origins of Ebola and why it spread so rapidly, he traces West Africa's chronic health failures back to centuries of exploitation and injustice. Under formal colonial rule, disease containment was a priority but care was not - and the region's health care woes worsened, with devastating consequences that Farmer traces up to the present.This thorough and hopeful narrative is a definitive work of reportage, history, and advocacy, and a crucial intervention in public-health discussions around the world.

The Untold Vajpayee: Politician and Paradox


Ullekh N.P. - 2016
    The Untold Vajpayee : The Life and Times of A Poet Politician by ULLEKH NP , 9780670088782

Cry Havoc


Simon Mann - 2011
    On March 7, 2004, former SAS soldier and mercenary Simon Mann prepared to take off from Harare International Airport. His destination was Equatorial Guinea; his was intention to remove one of the most brutal dictators in Africa in a privately organized coup d'etat. The plot had the tacit approval of Western intelligence agencies and Mann had planned, overseen, and won two wars in Angola and Sierra Leone. So why did it go so wrong? Here he reveals the full involvement of Mark Thatcher in the coup d'etat, the endorsement of a former prime minister, and the financial involvement of two internationally famous members of the House of Lords. He also discusses how the British government approached him in the months preceding the Iraq War, to suggest ways in which a justified invasion of Iraq could be engineered. He also discusses the pain of telling his wife Amanda, who gave birth to their fourth child while he was incarcerated, that he believed he would never be freed.

Two Weeks in November: The astonishing inside story of the coup that toppled Mugabe


Douglas Rogers - 2019
    

Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples


Linda Tuhiwai Smith - 1999
    Here, an indigenous researcher issues a clarion call for the decolonization of research methods.The book is divided into two parts. In the first, the author critically examines the historical and philosophical base of Western research. Extending the work of Foucault, she explores the intersections of imperialism, knowledge and research, and the different ways in which imperialism is embedded in disciplines of knowledge and methodologies as 'regimes of truth'. Providing a history of knowledge from the Enlightenment to Postcoloniality, she also discusses the fate of concepts such as 'discovery, 'claiming' and 'naming' through which the west has incorporated and continues to incorporate the indigenous world within its own web.The second part of the book meets the urgent need for people who are carrying out their own research projects, for literature which validates their frustrations in dealing with various western paradigms, academic traditions and methodologies, which continue to position the indigenous as 'Other'. In setting an agenda for planning and implementing indigenous research, the author shows how such programmes are part of the wider project of reclaiming control over indigenous ways of knowing and being.Exploring the broad range of issues which have confronted, and continue to confront, indigenous peoples, in their encounters with western knowledge, this book also sets a standard for truly emancipatory research. It brilliantly demonstrates that "when indigenous peoples become the researchers and not merely the researched, the activity of research is transformed."

Landmark Judgments That Changed India


Asok Kumar Ganguly - 2015
    Of these, it is the judiciary’s task to uphold constitutional values and ensure justice for all. The interpretation and application of constitutional values by the judicial system has had far-reaching impact, often even altering provisions of the Constitution itself. Although our legal system was originally based on the broad principles of the English common law, over the years it has been adapted to Indian traditions and been changed, for the better, by certain landmark verdicts.In Landmark Judgments that Changed India, former Supreme Court judge and eminent jurist Asok Kumar Ganguly analyses certain cases that led to the formation of new laws and changes to the legal system. Discussed in this book are judgments in cases such as Kesavananda Bharati v. State of Kerala that curtailed the power of Parliament to amend the Constitution; Maneka Gandhi v. Union of India and Others that defined personal liberty; and Golaknath v. State of Punjab, where it was ruled that amendments which infringe upon fundamental rights cannot be passed.Of special significance for law students and practitioners, this book is also an ideal guide for anyone interested in the changes made to Indian laws down the years, and the evolution of the judicial system to what it is today.

Civilization or Barbarism: An Authentic Anthropology


Cheikh Anta Diop - 1988
    Challenging societal beliefs, this volume rethinks African and world history from an Afrocentric perspective.

Body Ritual Among the Nacirema (Reprint Series in Social Sciences)


Horace Miner - 1975
    

Smart Power: Climate Change, the Smart Grid, and the Future of Electric Utilities


Peter Fox-Penner - 2010
    This and other developments will prompt utilities to undergo the largest changes in their history. Smart Power examines the many facets of this unprecedented transformation. This enlightening book begins with a look back on the deregulatory efforts of the 1990s and their gradual replacement by concerns over climate change, promoting new technologies, and developing stable prices and supplies. In thorough but non-technical terms it explains the revolutionary changes that the Smart Grid is bringing to utility operations. It also examines the options for low-carbon emissions along with the real-world challenges the industry and its regulators must face as the industry retools and finances its new sources and systems. Throughout the book, Peter Fox-Penner provides insights into the policy choices and regulatory reform needed to face these challenges. He not only weighs the costs and benefits of every option, but presents interviews with informed experts, including economists, utility CEOs, and engineers. He gives a brief history of the development of the current utility business model and examines possible new business models that are focused on energy efficiency.Smart Power explains every aspect of the coming energy revolution for utilities in lively prose that will captivate even the most techno-phobic readers.

The Pentagon Papers: Making History at the Washington Post (A Vintage Short)


Katharine Graham - 2017
      After inheriting the Post from her father, and assuming its leadership in 1963 after the death of her husband, Graham found herself unexpectedly playing a role in history. Here she recounts the riveting episodes that transformed a shy widow into a newspaper legend, as she defied the government to publish the Pentagon Papers’ secrets about the Vietnam War and then led the way in exposing the Watergate scandal. Graham gives us an intimate behind-the-scenes view of the tense debates and high stakes she and her editors faced, and concludes with a powerful argument for the freedom of the press as a bulwark against abuses of power. An ebook short.