History/Politics - government

A gripping exploration of the last great unknown realm of the British secret service: Government Communication Headquarters (GCHQ). GCHQ is the successor to the famous Bletchley Park wartime code-breaking organisation and is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the country. During the war, it commanded more staff than MI5 and MI6 combined and has produced a number of intelligence triumphs, as well as some notable failures. Since the end of the Cold War, it has played a pivotal role in shaping Britain's secre... read more

Maori and Parliament is a collection of nineteen presentations and papers from twenty-one academics, political commentators and current and former parliamentarians and is the result of the Maori and Parliament conference held at Parliament in May 2009.

A reinterpretation of the postwar years. It examines what drove the leaders of the most powerful and populous nations around the globe - Franklin D Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Josef Stalin, Charles De Gaulle, and Harry S Truman - to rely on traditional power politics despite the catastrophic violence their nations had endured.

Fifteen years ago, southern Afghanistan was in even greater chaos than it is now. The Russians, who had occupied the country throughout the 1980s, were long gone. The disparate ethnic and religious leaders who had united to eject the invaders - the famous mujaheddin - were at each others' throats. For the rural poor of Kandahar province, life was almost impossible. On 12 October 1994 a small group of religious students decided to take matters into their own hands. Led by an illiterate village mullah with one eye, some 200 of them s... read more

Africa is forever on our TV screens, but the bad-news stories (famine, genocide, corruption) massively outweigh the good (South Africa). Ever since the process of de-colonialisation began in the mid-1950s, and arguably before, the continent has appeared to be stuck in a process of irreversible decline. Constant war, improper use of natural resources and misappropriation of revenues and aid monies contribute to an impression of a continent beyond hope. How did we get here? What, if anything, is to be done? Fully revised and updated... read more