In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon: Stories of Repression in the New China

In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon: Stories of Repression in the New China
Xu Youyu (Editor), Hua Ze (Editor)

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Human Rights

Over the last decade China has undergone a transformation. After the dark days of the Cultural Revolution, it has emerged as one of the twenty-first century’s most powerful economies, with millions of citizens now entering the middle class. Yet, despite these rapid changes, China’s human rights record remains abysmal, and a heavy shroud of secrecy protects the one-party system from accountability. In In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon, Chinese citizens from all walks of life share their stories of brutality and oppression. While inconceivable in the West, public beatings, grueling official questioning, unexplained detentions, and house arrest have become common-place occurrences, requiring only a minor infraction to set into motion. Those that dare to push the boundaries of the totalitarian regime, including one essayist’s visit to the human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, are sentenced to life-long imprisonment, subjected to physical and psychological torture, and, frighteningly, made to "disappear." What emerges is a pattern of harassment directed, not at opposition figures, but ordinary citizens who live in crippling uncertainty of their future. Edited by two Chinese scholars, both of whom have experienced surveillance, control, abduction, and detention, this is a probing and revealing look at life under the police state of the world’s most populous country.

• Rank: #56972 in Books
• Published on: 2013-10-29
• Released on: 2013-10-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .60 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

American Taboo

American Taboo
Philip Weiss (Author)
(46)

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Human Rights

In 1975, a new group of Peace Corps volunteers landed on the island nation of Tonga. Among them was Deborah Gardner -- a beautiful twenty-three-year-old who, in the following year, would be stabbed twenty-two times and left for dead inside her hut.

Another volunteer turned himself in to the Tongan police, and many of the other Americans were sure he had committed the crime. But with the aid of the State Department, he returned home a free man. Although the story was kept quiet in the United States, Deb Gardner's death and the outlandish aftermath took on legendary proportions in Tonga.

Now journalist Philip Weiss "shines daylight on the facts of this ugly case with the fervor of an avenging angel" (Chicago Tribune), exposing a gripping tale of love, violence, and clashing ideals. With bravura reporting and vivid, novelistic prose, Weiss transforms a Polynesian legend into a singular artifact of American history and a profoundly moving human story.

• Rank: #16627 in eBooks
• Published on: 2009-03-17
• Released on: 2009-03-17
• Format: Kindle eBook

Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground

Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices from the Internet Underground
Emily Parker (Author)

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Human Rights

An incisive look at the next major battlegrounds between the Internet and state control

In Now I Know Who My Comrades Are, Emily Parker, a former State Department policy advisor and former writer at The Wall Street Journal, provides on-the-ground accounts of how the Internet is transforming lives in China, Cuba and Russia.

In China, university students use the Internet to save the life of an attempted murder victim. In Cuba, authorities try to silence an online critic by sowing seeds of distrust in her marriage. And in Russia, a lone blogger rises to become the most prominent opposition figure since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Authoritarian governments try to isolate individuals from one another, but in the age of Twitter and Facebook, this is impossible. Or as one blogger put it: "Now I know who my comrades are." Social media helps people overcome feelings of powerlessness, leading to the rise of a new kind of citizen. Emily Parker details how prominent dissidents and ordinary citizens use the Internet to expose injustices and challenge authority. Now I Know Who My Comrades Are is a testament to the power of community in the face of repression.a

• Rank: #51349 in eBooks
• Published on: 2014-02-18
• Released on: 2014-02-18

WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy

WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy
David Leigh (Author), Luke Harding (Author)

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Human Rights

Published to coincide with the forthcoming film, The Fifth Estate, starring Beneditct Cumberbatch, this tie-in edition contains two new chapters on Julian Assange and Bradley Manning, and a foreword by Alan Rusbridger.

It was the biggest leak in history. WikiLeaks infuriated the world's greatest superpower, embarrassed the British royal family and helped cause a revolution in Africa. The man behind it was Julian Assange, one of the strangest figures ever to become a worldwide celebrity. Was he an internet messiah or a cyber-terrorist? Information freedom fighter or sex criminal? The debate echoed around the globe as US politicians called for his assassination.

And Assange's actions continue to be felt, in the trial of Bradley Manning and the flight of Edward Snowden, the NSA whistleblower.

Award-winning Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding were at the centre of a unique publishing drama that involved the release of some 250,000 secret diplomatic cables and classified files from the Afghan and Iraq wars. (At one point the platinum-haired hacker was hiding from the CIA in David Leigh's London house.) Now, together with the paper's investigative reporting team, Leigh and Harding reveal the startling inside story of the man and the leak, and bring the story dramatically up to date.

• Rank: #57079 in eBooks
• Published on: 2013-10-01
• Released on: 2013-10-01
• Format: Kindle eBook

Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse

Preparing for the Possibility of a North Korean Collapse
Bruce W. Bennett (Author)

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Human Rights

A North Korean government collapse would have serious consequences, including a humanitarian disaster and civil war. The Republic of Korea and the United States can help mitigate the consequences, seeking unification by being prepared to deliver humanitarian aid in the North, stop conflict, demilitarize the North Korean military over time, secure and eliminate North Korean weapons of mass destruction, and manage Chinese intervention.

• Rank: #2293664 in Books
• Published on: 2013-09-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
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• Binding: Paperback
• 342 pages

The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law

The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law
Dieter Fleck (Author)

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Human Rights

This fully updated third edition of The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law sets out an international 'manual' of humanitarian law accompanied by case analysis and extensive explanatory commentary by a team of distinguished and internationally renowned experts.

The new edition takes account of recent developments in the law, including the 2010 amendments to the ICC Statute, the progressive evolution of customary law, and new jurisprudence from national and international courts and tribunals. It sheds light on controversial topics like direct participation in hostilities; air and missile warfare; belligerent occupation; operational detention; and the protection of the environment in armed conflict. The book also addresses the growing need to consider the interface between international humanitarian law and human rights, as well as other branches of international law, both during armed conflicts and in post-conflict situations.

The commentary both deepens reflection on such innovations, and critically reconsiders views expressed in earlier editions to provide a contemporary analysis of this changing field. Renowned international lawyers offer a broad spectrum of legal opinions, restating the law in this area, which is applicable worldwide. Particular attention is paid to problems of application of the law in recent military campaigns, which are assessed and interpreted in a practice-oriented manner. Based on best-practice rules of global importance, this book gives invaluable guidance to practitioners and scholars of this important body of law.

• Rank: #110795 in Books
• Published on: 2013-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
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• Binding: Hardcover
• 830 pages

I Am Malala

I Am Malala
by Malala Yousafzai (Author, Narrator), Archie Panjabi (Narrator)
(18)

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Human Rights

Falling in Love with America Again: Families and Communities Rebuild from the Ground Up

Falling in Love with America Again: Families and Communities Rebuild from the Ground Up
Jim DeMint (Author)

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Human Rights

While the big federal government, irresponsible big-spending states and big crony capitalists are pushing our nation toward a collapse of our economic and monetary systems, Jim DeMint's book, FALLING IN LOVE WITH AMERICA AGAIN, will show Americans how to rebuild our economy and culture through grass roots efforts.

The prescription for an American comeback is for responsible states and citizens to work together to remove the death grip of government from the throats of taxpayers, institute school choice at the state level, decentralize healthcare delivery, open energy reserves, cut government spending, lower taxes, and protect traditional values and institutions. This book demonstrates how small, decentralized governments and private sector entities can be more effective and efficient, featuring numerous examples of states, communities, families, churches, businesses and voluntary organizations that are currently succeeding on the model that smaller is better. Every American can be a part of the rebuilding of America on the foundations that made us the greatest nation in the world and it begins by FALLING IN LOVE WITH AMERICA AGAIN.

• Rank: #88756 in Books
• Published on: 2014-03-04
• Released on: 2014-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
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• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Transitional Justice in Balance

Transitional Justice in Balance
Tricia D. Olsen (Author), Leigh A. Payne (Author), Andrew G. Reiter (Author)

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Human Rights

Since the 1970s, countries emerging from dictatorship or civil war have increasingly employed a variety of transitional justice mechanisms to address past human rights violations and to promote reconciliation and democracy. Myriad articles and books have focused on this phenomenon without shedding much light on why a country chooses one mechanism over another, why some countries combine mechanisms, or why some mechanisms work better under certain conditions than others.

In the first project of its kind to compare multiple mechanisms and combinations of mechanisms across regions, countries, and time, Transitional Justice in Balance: Comparing Processes, Weighing Efficacy systematically analyzes the claims made in the literature using a vast array of data, which the authors have assembled in the Transitional Justice Data Base. Trials, truth commissions, amnesties, reparations, and lustration policies—the main focus of the literature to date—are among the 854 transitional justice mechanisms, which were implemented in 161 countries from 1970 to 2007 and included in this database. The authors use the database to explore the adoption of transitional justice and its effectiveness in achieving its primary goals.

The authors conclude that transitional justice has a positive and significant impact on human rights and democracy in the societies that adopt it, but that it is the combination and sequence of mechanisms that achieves this effect, not any one mechanism alone. In clear, lucid text that scholars and policymakers can easily follow, the authors contend that a “justice balance” that combines trials and amnesties, with or without truth commissions, is crucial for success in societies seeking improvements in democracy and human rights after conflict.

• Rank: #79908 in eBooks
• Published on: 2013-09-12
• Released on: 2013-09-12
• Format: Kindle eBook

The Great American Disconnect: Seven Fundamental Threats To Our Democracy

The Great American Disconnect: Seven Fundamental Threats To Our Democracy
Jed Morey (Author), Christopher Twarowski (Editor)
(2)

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Human Rights

The story of America, as told to us by the political establishment, is not unlike scripture that attempts to explain our circumstances in a manner that must be accepted as gospel. The truth is that America has been hijacked by powerful special corporate interests whose paths toward profit are lubricated by political accomplices complicit in a scheme that suppresses opportunity and freedom among the masses. Our state of denial has caused us to drift far from the nation we believe ourselves to be while holding tightly to an image of the nation we wish to be.
Such is the state of our disunion. Welcome to The Great American Disconnect.
Our laws equate corporations with people. Our government favors progress at any cost over preservation at every cost. We use food to make fuel while children go hungry, vilify climate science and freely refer to environmentalism as a form of Nazism—as if protecting that which gives life to the planet is somehow evil. We claim to honor our soldiers but where is the honor in deploying them just to protect our oil interests? We attack corporate subsidies for renewable energy while protecting tax breaks and loopholes for large fossil fuel companies. An aging middle class population, which for years paid into the Social Security and Medicare systems, believes such programs should be abolished for future generations. Fiscal conservatives call for more deregulation—the most liberal and irresponsible of economic beliefs— a strategy that nearly led to the collapse of the entire economic system.
In 1929 the American economy collapsed under its own weight; the result of hubris, greed and the belief that progress was a fundamental and irreversible aspect of capitalism. The primary distinction between then and now is that today’s American economic system isn’t collapsing from the top down; it’s rotting from the inside out. This is what happens when an organism is beset by disease.
The Great American Disconnect explores the democratic creation myth and attempts to verbalize the malaise that has taken hold of our political system.

• Rank: #28906 in eBooks
• Published on: 2013-10-04
• Format: Kindle eBook

The Life of Olaudah Equiano (Dover Thrift Editions)

The Life of Olaudah Equiano (Dover Thrift Editions)
Olaudah Equiano (Author)
(19)

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Human Rights

Compelling work traces the formidable journey of an Igbo prince from captivity to freedom and literacy and recounts his enslavement in the New World, service in the Seven Years War, voyages to the Arctic, six months among the Miskito Indians in Central America, and more.

• Rank: #40313 in Books
• Published on: 1999-01-26
• Released on: 1999-01-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 7.99" h x 5.00" w x .47" l, .36 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

This Immoral Trade: Slavery in the 21st Century

This Immoral Trade: Slavery in the 21st Century
Baroness Caroline Cox (Author), Lydia Tanner (Author)

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Human Rights

This groundbreaking and authoritative resource reporting on the state of modern-day worldwide slavery and human trafficking has now been thoroughly updated.

It is estimated that more than 27 million slaves exist today, ranging from prostitutes in London and New York to indentured workers in Burma. The statistics are shocking. But behind each statistic is a human being—a man, woman, or child; and behind each human being is a family and a community which have been devastated or destroyed. This Immoral Trade shares the stories of some of these.

Including chapters on the causes of slavery, the history and different forms of contemporary slavery, the Christian roots of the anti-slavery movement, and three detailed case studies—on Sudan, Burma, and Uganda—the new edition also includes a special chapter on the Dalits of India and a section on human trafficking, both with arresting and disturbing case histories. It concludes with an important chapter on action readers can take.

Sharply written and carefully researched, This Immoral Trade is a powerful resource that will spur thoughtful readers to a deeper understanding of this global threat.

“This book demands the attention of all who would seek to follow in the footsteps of Wilberforce.”

—Dr. John Sentamu, Archbishop of York

• Rank: #96625 in Books
• Published on: 2013-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .65 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse

Thank You, Anarchy: Notes from the Occupy Apocalypse
Nathan Schneider (Author), Rebecca Solnit (Foreword)
(3)

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Human Rights

Thank You, Anarchy is an up-close, inside account of Occupy Wall Street’s first year in New York City, written by one of the first reporters to cover the phenomenon. Nathan Schneider chronicles the origins and explosive development of the Occupy movement through the eyes of the organizers who tried to give shape to an uprising always just beyond their control. Capturing the voices, encounters, and beliefs that powered the movement, Schneider brings to life the General Assembly meetings, the chaotic marches, the split-second decisions, and the moments of doubt as Occupy swelled from a hashtag online into a global phenomenon.

A compelling study of the spirit that drove this watershed movement, Thank You, Anarchy vividly documents how the Occupy experience opened new social and political possibilities and registered a chilling indictment of the status quo. It was the movement’s most radical impulses, this account shows, that shook millions out of a failed tedium and into imagining, and fighting for, a better kind of future.
 

• Rank: #84865 in Books
• Published on: 2013-09-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .70 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security)

Governing through Biometrics: The Biopolitics of Identity (Transnational Crime, Crime Control and Security)
Btihaj Ajana (Author)

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Human Rights

Managing identity through biometric technology has become a routine and ubiquitous practice in recent years. From border control and asylum regulation to the management of social services and medical records, various fields are increasingly deploying biometric systems as a means of identity verification and authentication. The scope and nature of these systems are raising a host of concerns regarding the intensification of surveillance practices and the reduction of identity to a series of bio-data and algorithms.

By analysing biometric systems as a biopolitical practice within the domain of borders, immigration and citizenship management, this book interrogates what is at stake in the merging of the body and technology for security and governance purposes. It draws on a number of critical theories, philosophies and empirical examples, offering a multi-level and timely analysis of the socio-political and ethical implications of biometric identity systems.

• Rank: #104094 in eBooks
• Published on: 2013-09-25
• Released on: 2013-09-us.html
• Format: Kindle eBook

The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair (African Arguments)

The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between Hope and Despair (African Arguments)
Michael Deibert (Author)

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Human Rights

Over the past two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the centre of the deadliest series of conflicts since the Second World War, and now hosts the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. In this compelling book, acclaimed journalist Michael Deibert paints a picture of a nation in flux, inching towards peace but at the same time solidifying into another era of authoritarian rule under its enigmatic president, Joseph Kabila.

Featuring a wealth of first-hand interviews and secondary sources, the narrative travels from war-torn villages in the country's east to the chaotic, pulsing capital of Kinshasa in order to bring us the voices of the Congolese - from impoverished gold prospectors and market women to government officials - as it explores the complicated political, ethnic and economic geography of this tattered land. A must-read for anyone interested in contemporary Africa, The Democratic Republic of Congo: Between, Hope and Despair sheds new light on this sprawling and often misunderstood country that has become iconic both for its great potential and dashed hopes.

• Rank: #190114 in Books
• Published on: 2013-10-08
• Released on: 2013-10-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 280 pages