Feeding on a haze of half-facts and a fog of moral outrage, the corporate media is able to inflict maximum damage almost instantaneously. As David Edwards and David Cromwell show, these propaganda blitzes also have transnational outcomes, distorting the war reporting coming out of both right-wing and liberal media outlets.             Propaganda Blitz shows the damning effect of spin in UK media, not just in right-wing newspapers like the Sun, Times, Daily Mail, and the Express, but also in trusted liberal outlets like the BBC and the Guardian. The book uncovers a storm of top-down campaigns behind war reporting from Iraq, Syria, and Palestine, as well as the media’s destruction of the credibility of figures on the left, including Jeremy Corbyn, Russell Brand, and Hugo Chavez. Exposing propagandists at the top levels of the BBC, as well as their reporting on the Scottish Independence referendum, the dismantling of the National Health Service, and looming climate chaos, Propaganda Blitz shows how the corporate media hide the real issues from the public view, often completely reversing the truth. Outlining a new model for anti-business media activism, the authors make an impassioned plea for a return to objective journalism.

    Skillfully blending intellectual, political, and cultural history, Jan-Werner Müller elucidates the ideas that shaped the period of ideological extremes before 1945 and the liberalization of West European politics after the Second World War. He also offers vivid portraits of famous as well as unjustly forgotten political thinkers and the movements and institutions they inspired.Müller pays particular attention to ideas advanced to justify fascism and how they relate to the special kind of liberal democracy that was created in postwar Western Europe. He also explains the impact of the 1960s and neoliberalism, ending with a critical assessment of today's self-consciously post-ideological age.

    But wanting to be with him, she endured the trip, only to fall desperately ill years later with a disease that leaves her husband with more questions than answers. When the anthropologist discovers a deception that shatters his grief and guilt, he begins to reevaluate his love for his wife as well as his friendship with one of the nomads he studied. He returns to Africa to make sense of what happened, traveling into the far reaches of the Chalbi Desert, where he must sift through the layers of his memories and reconcile them with what he now knows. Set in a windswept wilderness menaced by hyenas and lions, The Names of Things weaves together the stories of an anthropologist's journey into the desert, his firsthand accounts of the nomads' death rituals, and his struggle to find the names of things for which no words exist. Anthropologist John Colman Wood's debut novel is an exquisite, haunting exploration of the meaning of love and the rituals of grief.

    The New Mind Readers provides a compelling look at the origins, development, and future of these extraordinary tools, revealing how they are increasingly being used to decode our thoughts and experiences--and how this raises sometimes troubling questions about their application in domains such as marketing, politics, and the law.Russell Poldrack takes readers on a journey of scientific discovery, telling the stories of the visionaries behind these breakthroughs. Along the way, he gives an insider's perspective on what is perhaps the single most important technology in cognitive neuroscience today--functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, which is providing astonishing new insights into the contents and workings of the mind. He highlights both the amazing power and major limitations of these techniques and describes how applications outside the lab often exceed the bounds of responsible science. Poldrack also details the unique and sometimes disorienting experience of having his own brain scanned more than a hundred times as part of a landmark study of how human brain function changes over time.Written by one of the world's leading pioneers in the field, The New Mind Readers cuts through the hype and misperceptions surrounding these emerging new methods, offering needed perspective on what they can and cannot do--and demonstrating how they can provide new answers to age-old questions about the nature of consciousness and what it means to be human.

    Dahl . . . is about as covered in honors as a scholar can be. . . . He knows what he is talking about. And he thinks that the Constitution has something the matter with it.”—Hendrik Hertzberg, New Yorker  “A devastating attack on the undemocratic character of the American Constitution.”—Gordon S. Wood, New York Review of Books   In this provocative book, one of our most eminent political scientists poses the question, “Why should Americans uphold their constitution?” The vast majority of Americans venerate the Constitution and the democratic principles it embodies, but many also worry that the United States has fallen behind other nations on crucial issues, including economic equality, racial integration, and women’s rights. Robert Dahl explores this vital tension between the Americans’ belief in the legitimacy of their constitution and their belief in the principles of democracy. Dahl starts with the assumption that the legitimacy of the American Constitution derives solely fromits utility as an instrument of democratic governance. Dahl demonstrates that, due to the context in which it was conceived, our constitution came to incorporate significant antidemocratic elements. Because the Framers of the Constitution had no relevant example of a democratic political system on which to model the American government, many defining aspects of our political system were implemented as a result of short-sightedness or last-minute compromise. Dahl highlights those elements of the American system that are most unusual and potentially antidemocratic: the federal system, the bicameral legislature, judicial review, presidentialism, and the electoral college system. The political system that emerged from the world’s first great democratic experiment is unique—no other well-established democracy has copied it. How does the American constitutional system function in comparison to other democratic systems? How could our political system be altered to achieve more democratic ends? To what extent did the Framers of the Constitution build features into our political system that militate against significant democratic reform? Refusing to accept the status of the American Constitution as a sacred text, Dahl challenges us all to think critically about the origins of our political system and to consider the opportunities for creating a more democratic society.

    Archeological research in Africa has just begun, and many sources of information in Arabian, Portuguese, and other tongues are not fully at our command; and, too, it must frankly be confessed, racial prejudice against darker peoples is still too strong in so-called civilized centers for judicial appraisement of the peoples of Africa. Much intensive monographic work in history and science is needed to clear mooted points and quiet the controversialist who mistakes present personal desire for scientific proof. Nevertheless, I have not been able to withstand the temptation to essay such short general statement of the main known facts and their fair interpretation as shall enable the general reader to know as men a sixth or more of the human race. Manifestly so short a story must be mainly conclusions and generalizations with but meager indication of authorities and underlying arguments. Possibly, if the Public will, a later and larger book may be more satisfactory on these points." -- W.E.B. Du Bois Complete with maps and reading guilde.] Original publication date: 1915.

    Tracing the emergence of populist campaigns from the 19th century to the present day, he looks at such movements as the labor movement, the prohibitionist crusade, Catholic radio populist Father Coughlin, the New Left, and the recent advance of conservative populism, as identified with such figures as George Wallace and Ronald Reagan. Kazin opens by saying, 'I began to write this book as a way of making sense of a painful experience: the decline of the American Left, including its liberal component, and the rise of the Right.' Anyone interested in either political tendency will find this book both informative and engaging. It is a powerful, elegantly written, and observant study that never fails to retain the reader's interest."--Library JournalFor the revised Cornell edition, Michael Kazin has rewritten the final chapter, bringing his coverage of populism up to the 1996 presidential election and added a new conclusion.

    In this second edition, Dr Mbiti has updated his material to include the involvement of women in religion, and the potential unity to be found in what was once thought to be a mass of quite separate religions.Mbiti adds a new dimension to the understanding of the history, thinking, and life throughout the African continent. Religion is approached from an African point of view but is as accessible to readers who belong to non-African societies as it is to those who have grown up in African nations.Since its first publication, this book has become acknowledged as the standard work in the field of study, and it is essential reading for anyone concerned with African religion, history, philosophy, anthropology or general African studies.

    Much more than just a book about Trump himself, it is about the forces that led to his existence, and it is a guide for how to create a Trumpless world. Anatomy of a Monstrosity looks closely at why progressives failed to stop his election, and develops a series of proposals for how ordinary people can fight back against Trumpism and win. Carefully sourced, comprehensive, witty, and biting, Trump: Anatomy of a Monstrosity is the single book everyone opposed to Trump should read.

    It demonstrates that consensual systems stimulate economic growth, control inflation and unemployment, and limit budget deficits.

    Born into a completely different world from his brother, he was caught up in a life of crime, where lives were cheap and short, and violence was the only way a man could fight his way out of the ghetto.But through strength and character, George Obama turned everything around - escaping the gangs and building a future for himself.From survival to hope, ‘Brother’ tells his amazing story.It is a book that will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about the extraordinary family of the world's most powerful political leader - as well as day-to-day life on Africa's meanest streets.

    Teresa O'Kane had always longed to see the world. She owned scads of travel books and maps to prove it and was about to buy yet another bookcase to hold the many Lonely Planet guides and travel essays that she had accumulated over the years when she turned to her husband and said, "I'm tired of storing our dreams. Let's live them!" Within a month, they bought one-way tickets to Morocco, leased out their home, and set out on a journey of the African Continent top to bottom, from Casablanca to Cape Town. Transiting seventeen countries in 10 months, mostly by public transport, they explored wild, exotic, and historic locations they had only dreamed of and some they had never heard of. From sandy Timbuktu, to a tiny lemur populated island in Madagascar, the author embraces Africa. She strokes the manes of lions, contracts malaria, flies a micro light over Victoria Falls, earns a level one certification as a South African safari guide, discovers that an insect has turned her foot into a nursery for hundreds of eggs, grapples with the negative effects of foreign aid, and rubs elbows with European royalty deep within the Dogon in Mali. O'Kane offers an entertaining and enlightening look into overland travel on the African continent. Filled with helpful budget minded travel tips, this hilarious and inspiring book may find you yearning to take a career break of your own. Awards: The Indie Book Award for Best Memoir of 2012. San Francisco Book Festival Honorable Mention Award for Non-Fiction. Travelers Tales SOLAS for My Gambian Husband.

    In his hallmark friendly style, he explores the universal impact of being the right size. By examining stories ranging from Alice in Wonderland to Gulliver's Travels, he shows that humans have always been fascinated by things big and small. Why then does size always reside on the fringes of science and never on the center stage? Why do biologists and others ponder size only when studying something else--running speed, life span, or metabolism? Why Size Matters, a pioneering book of big ideas in a compact size, gives size its due by presenting a profound yet lucid overview of what we know about its role in the living world. Bonner argues that size really does matter--that it is the supreme and universal determinant of what any organism can be and do. For example, because tiny creatures are subject primarily to forces of cohesion and larger beasts to gravity, a fly can easily walk up a wall, something we humans cannot even begin to imagine doing.Bonner introduces us to size through the giants and dwarfs of human, animal, and plant history and then explores questions including the physics of size as it affects biology, the evolution of size over geological time, and the role of size in the function and longevity of living things.As this elegantly written book shows, size affects life in its every aspect. It is a universal frame from which nothing escapes.

    Horowitz constructs his theory of ethnic conflict, relating ethnic affiliations to kinship and intergroup relations to the fear of domination. A groundbreaking work when it was published in 1985, the book remains an original and powerfully argued comparative analysis of one of the most important forces in the contemporary world.

    In this engaging and provocative book, Nic Cheeseman and Brian Klaas expose the limitations of national elections as a means of promoting democratization, and reveal the six essential strategies that dictators use to undermine the electoral process in order to guarantee victory for themselves. Based on their firsthand experiences as election watchers and their hundreds of interviews with presidents, prime ministers, diplomats, election officials, and conspirators, Cheeseman and Klaas document instances of election rigging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, including notable examples from Brazil, India, Nigeria, Russia, and the United States—touching on the 2016 election. This eye-opening study offers a sobering overview of corrupted professional politics, while providing fertile intellectual ground for the development of new solutions for protecting democracy from authoritarian subversion.