Politics, Current Affairs & Economic thought

Twenty years ago, Fair Trade started as an effort to enable smallholder producers from developing countries to successfully compete in international markets. Better access to market outlets and stable prices are considered key principles for sustainable poverty reduction and stakeholder participation based on 'trade, not aid'. While Fair Trade is primarily conceived as a trading partnership - based on dialogue, transparency and mutual respect - seeking greater equity in international trade, it relies on an organized social movement... read more

Jensen and Draffan look at the way machine readable devices that track our identities and purchases have infiltrated our lives and have come to define our culture.

In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been golden arches or bomb craters but the bulldozing of the human psyche itself: America is in the process of homogenising the way the world goes mad. America has been the world leader in generating new mental health treatments and modern theories of the human psyche, exporting psychopharmaceuticals packaged with the certainty that its biomedical knowledge will relieve the suffering and stigma of mental illness. ... read more

It created a worldwide furore when Tariq Ramadan was barred from US entry to accept a prestigious appointment at Notre Dame University. In a gripping portrait, Paul Berman details Ramadan's disturbing ties to radical Islam, and notes a troubling tendency among Western liberals to overlook his questionable tenets in the rush to embrace a moderate.

Crime of the Time is packed with information to protect you from being the next victim of credit card and cyber fraud. If you've ever wondered what exactly skimming, phishing, shoulder surfing, hacking, and identity theft are, find out how easily these crimes are committed by increasingly tech-savvy thieves. This eye-opening investigation also goes behind the scenes of the banks and criminal networks to uncover how the multitude of ingenious scams is just the tip of a massive international fraud iceberg. Find out how cutting-edge t... read more

This book details Obama's plan for America's renewal and features eight key speeches from his 2008 presidential campaign. Among the speeches is Obama's declaration of candidacy for the Presidency, his inspirational speech on race in response to his former pastor Jeremiah Wright's controversial comments about America, and his magnanimous declaration as he became President-elect last week. A foreword by Barack Obama describes his vision of hope for America. First published 2008.

In The Life You Can Save, philosopher Peter Singer, uses ethical arguments, provocative thought experiments, illuminating examples, and case studies of charitable giving to show that our current response to world poverty is not only insufficient but ethically indefensible.

To most Westerners, Russia remains as enigmatic today as it was during the Iron Curtain era. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country had an opportunity to confront its tortured past. In Inside the Stalin Archives, Jonathan Brent asks why this didn't happen. Why are the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion sold openly in the lobby of the State Duma? Why are archivists under surveillance and phones still tapped? Why does Stalin, a man responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people, remain popular enough t... read more

In Fit to Print, which became a bestseller in Holland, Joris Luyendijk tells the story of his five years as a correspondent in the Middle East. Extremely young for a correspondent but fluent in Arabic, he spoke with stone throwers and terrorists, taxi drivers and professors, victims and agressors, and community leaders and families. He chronicles first-hand experiences of dictatorship, occupation, terror, and war. His stories cast light on a number of major crises, from the Iraq War to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, along with l... read more

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When Joe Bageant returned to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, he rediscovered his redneck roots: 'the great beery, NASCAR-loving, church-going, gun-owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks' . But he soon realised that these were the very people who had carried George W. Bush to victory.

At the heart of this title is Senator Obama's vision of how his country can move beyond its divisions to tackle concrete problems. He examines the growing economic insecurity of American families and the racial and religious tensions within the body politic, and considers the nature of threats from outside America's borders.

The Watergate scandal began with a break-in at the office of the Democratic National Committee at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1971, and ended when President Gerald Ford granted Richard M. Nixon a pardon on September 8, 1974, one month after Nixon resigned from office in disgrace. Effectively removed from the reach of prosecutors, Nixon returned to California, uncontrite and unconvicted, convinced that time would exonerate him of any wrongdoing and certain that history would remember his great accomplishments - the opening of Ch... read more

The rise and fall of ancient Rome has been on American minds from the beginning of their republic. Today Americans focus less on the Roman Republic than on the empire that took its place. Depending on who's doing the talking, the history of Rome serves as either a triumphal call to action or dire warning of imminent collapse.

n a stunning indictment of the Bush administration and Congress, best-selling author Naomi Wolf lays out her case for saving American democracy. In authoritative research and documentation Wolf explains how events of the last six years parallel steps taken in the early years of the 20th centurys worst dictatorships such as Germany, Russia, China, and Chile.The book cuts across political parties and ideologies and speaks directly to those among us who are concerned about the ever-tightening noose being placed around our liberties.In... read more

Who is Omar Nasiri? Why does he matter?This is the remarkable true story - attested by specialists in international espionage and security - of the man who infiltrated Al Qaeda in Europe, Pakistan and Afghanistan.With an introduction by Gordon Corera, the BBC's security correspondent."A chillingly detailed portrait of life inside the Afghan training camps. Omar Nasiri's memoir offers a unique insider's perspective on the crucial years during which a loosely connected group of regional Islamist movements coalesced into Al Qaeda's gl... read more

THE 2005 MASSEY LECTURES In 2000, the United Nations established eight Millennium Development Goals — a series of targets which include halving extreme poverty, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS and providing universal primary education — agreed to by the world's countries and leading development institutions and to be met by 2015. In Race Against Time, Lewis turns his attention to the devastating impacts of AIDS and hunger in Africa and yet he provides real hope in suggesting simple and pragmatic mean... read more

What are the ethical concerns surrounding globalisation? Peter Singer examine our obligations towards climate change, foreign aid, the World trade Organization and the United Nations, and he asks us to consider what a global ethic could mean.

This book is an attempt to hold the policies of George W. Bush, and his actions as president, up to an ethical standard - including his own. But it goes beyond that. it is also a study in a distinctively American ethic, for there are many features of this ethic that are not widely held elsewhere in the developed world.

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