History/Politics - politics

Purple Dandelion is the true story of Farida Sultana, an extraordinary Muslim woman and single mother. The book is a reflection of her personal journey as an unconventional child who struggled through her adulthood and married life. Being a survivor of violence and abuse, Farida emerged as a strong advocate against all forms of violence and cultural and religious oppression against women.
The book chronicles her remarkable life. It begins in Bangladesh when as a young girl, she found herself in conflict with her traditional f... read more

The Most Dangerous Man in the World is the definitive account of WikiLeaks and the man who is as secretive as the organisations he targets. Through interviews with Julian Assange, his inner circle and those who fell out with him, Andrew Fowler tells the story of how a man with a turbulent childhood and brilliance for computers created a phenomenon that has become a game-changer in journalism and global politics. In this international thriller, Fowler gives a ringside seat on the biggest leak in history. He charts the pursuit of Ass... read more

Widely considered to be the most important biography of Nelson Mandela, Antony Sampson's remarkable book has now been updated by acclaimed South African journalist, John Battersby. Over a decade after his presidency of South Africa, Nelson Mandela remains an inspirational figure to millions of people -- both in his homeland and far beyond her borders. He is, without doubt, one of the most important figures in global history. Mandela's opposition to apartheid and his 27 year incarceration at the hands of South Africa's all-white r... read more

Memories of the Bolger years by those who worked closely with and for him in the two sequential National Governments of which he was Prime Minister of New Zealand between 1990 and 1997. These accounts vividly portray the political dynamics and challenges of the government that succeeded Lange's Labour government and present a fascinating picture of the man who led it. First published July 2008. Read Alison McCulloch's review in the Scoop Review of Books

Discover what it was that prompted luminaries such as Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Kenzaburo Oe, Michael Pollan, Albie Sachs, Oliver Stone, Elizabeth Warren and Howard Zinn to become indefatigable voices fighting for social equity.

Far more than oil, the control of water wealth throughout history has been pivotal to the rise and fall of great powers, the achievements of civilization, the transformations of society's vital habitats, and the quality of ordinary daily lives. Today, freshwater scarcity is one of the twenty-first century's decisive, looming challenges, driving new political, economic, and environmental realities across the globe. In "Water," Steven Solomon offers the first-ever narrative portrait of the power struggles, personalities, and breakth... read more

Analysing two centuries of warfare involving Western nations, this book systematically demolishes every argument that is put forward to justify going to war. By looking at the victors and the vanquished at the end of a major war and then a generation later, Ian Bickerton finds that the rewards of victory in war never last long. He finds that, objectively, it is impossible to tell who was the winner and who was the loser a mere twenty-five years after a war has ended. Leaders have always convinced their nations that fighting a war i... read more

Controversial, attention-seeking, forthright and driven ...all these words have been used to describe Pete Bethune. What can't be denied, though, is that he is a man who is prepared to fight - quite literally - for his principles; principles which relate not just to the saving of the great whales of the Southern Ocean, but to the planet as a whole. In Whale Warrior the invective is not reserved solely for the Japanese. Bethune lashes his own government for their lack of action over Japan's annual whale hunt. For this, Bethune has r... read more

The third edition of this dynamic book has been fully revised and updated to provide a comprehensive introduction to contemporary politics in the Middle East. This is a perfect introduction for undergraduates, covering key political, economic and social debates and providing updates and guidance for further reading.

In 9-11, published in November 2001 and arguably the single most influential post-9/11 book, internationally renowned thinker Noam Chomsky bridged the information gap around the World Trade Center attacks, cutting through the tangle of political opportunism, expedient patriotism, and general conformity that choked off American discourse in the months immediately following. Chomsky placed the attacks in context, marshalling his deep and nuanced knowledge of American foreign policy to trace the history of American political aggressio... read more

Pulling back the curtain on the secretive world of the global arms trade, Andrew Feinstein reveals the corruption and the cover-ups behind weapons deals ranging from the largest in history - between the British and Saudi governments - to BAE's controversial transactions in South Africa, Tanzania and eastern Europe, and the revolving-door relationships that characterise the US Congressional-Military-Industrial Complex. He exposes in forensic detail both the formal government-to-government trade in arms and the shadow world of illici... read more

"Standard Operating Procedure" is an utterly original collaboration by the writer Philip Gourevitch ("We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families") and the film-maker Errol Morris ("The Thin Blue Line" and "The Fog of War"). They have produced the first full reckoning of what actually happened at Abu Ghraib."Standard Operating Procedure" reveals the stories of the American soldiers who took and appeared in the haunting digital snapshots from Abu Ghraib prison that shocked the world - and simultaneously i... read more

Author and retired journalist Michael Guerin turns his deft attention to detail to a handful of notorious murder cases from New Zealand and abroad, examining the forensic science behind each case, and explaining all he unearths for an everyday audience. As well as providing the reader with a useful overview of DNA and forensic science and how they relate to police investigations, cases studied are: Mark Lundy, Jules Mikus, Jarrod Mangels, Bradley John Murdoch, and O.J. Simpson. Readers will be both informed and mesmerized as each c... read more

"The Political Gene" is a fascinating examination of the way that many scientists and politicians have sought to use Charles Darwin's ideas to solve social problems, or to bolster political ideologies. Sewell's beautifully crafted narrative shows us what drove people to put a black man on display in a zoo, forcibly sterilize a pair of innocent teenage sisters, lock up a British girl for eighteen years for a petty theft, murder disabled people in Nazi Germany, and slam shut America's 'Golden Door'. In a world where the gene becomes ... read more

A controversial and important book by BBC reporter and terrorism expert Peter Taylor In 'Talking to Terrorists' Peter Taylor takes us on a personal journey, quoting from diaries written at the time, as he reveals what it was like to come face-to-face with killers such as the Brighton bomber, Patrick Magee, and Islamic jihadis. What are terrorists really like? How do states counter them? And should governments talk to them? Drawing on more than 35 years of reporting terrorism, Taylor asks these questions as he tries to understand ... read more

This memoir begins in 1914 when the family summer holiday is cut short by the outbreak of war, and ends with Hitler's assumption of power in 1933. It is a portrait of the author and his own generation in Germany, those born between 1900 and 1910, and explains through his own experiences and those of his friends how that generation found Hitler irresistible. The book was written in 1939 but never published. The manuscript was found in 1999, hidden in a chest of drawers, by the author's son, after his father had died. An unforgettabl... read more

Bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Bob Woodward weighs in on President Obama as Commander-in-Chief and the Afghanistan War.

A frank and honest memoir by Britain's former ambassador to Kabul which provides a unique, high-level insight into Western policy in Afghanistan. For three years, from 2007 until 2010, Sherard Cowper-Coles was on the diplomatic frontline in Kabul as the West's mission in Afghanistan sank deeper into crisis. First as British Ambassador and, later, as the Foreign Secretary's Special Representative, he witnessed at first hand a struggle that by the time he left was swallowing billions of pounds of taxpayers' money a year, and had alr... read more