All of us have in our minds a cartoon image of what an autocratic state looks like, with a bad man at the top. But in the 21st century, that cartoon bears little resemblance to reality. Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy, but by sophisticated networks composed of kleptocratic financial structures, security services and professional propagandists. The members of these networks are connected not only within a given country, but among many countries. The corrupt, state-controlled companies in one dictatorship do business with corrupt, state-controlled companies in another. The police in one country can arm, equip, and train the police in another. The propagandists share resources―the troll farms that promote one dictator’s propaganda can also be used to promote the propaganda of another―and themes, pounding home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.

Unlike military or political alliances from other times and places, this group doesn’t operate like a bloc, but rather like an agglomeration of companies: Autocracy, Inc. Their relations are not based on values, but are rather transactional, which is why they operate so easily across ideological, geographical, and cultural lines. In truth, they are in full agreement about only one thing: Their dislike of us, the inhabitants of the democratic world, and their desire to see both our political systems and our values undermine.

That shared understanding of the world―where it comes from, why it lasts, how it works, how the democratic world has unwittingly helped to consolidate it, and how we can help bring it down―is the subject of this book.

Two-time Pulitzer prize winner Bob Woodward tells the revelatory, behind-the-scenes story of three wars – Ukraine, the Middle East and the struggle for the American presidency.

War is an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history.

We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. We also see Donald Trump, conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to regain political power.

With unrivalled, inside-the-room reporting, Woodward shows President Biden’s approach to managing the war in Ukraine, the most significant land war in Europe since World War II, and his tortured path to contain the bloody Middle East conflict between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas.

Woodward reveals the extraordinary complexity and consequence of wartime back-channel diplomacy and decision-making to deter the use of nuclear weapons and a rapid slide into World War III.

The raw cage-fight of politics accelerates as Americans prepare to vote in 2024, starting between President Biden and Trump, and ending with the unexpected elevation of Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.

War provides an unvarnished examination of the vice president as she tries to embrace the Biden legacy and policies while beginning to chart a path of her own as a presidential candidate.

Woodward’s reporting once again sets the standard for journalism at its most authoritative and illuminating.

The Sacred is the Profane collects nine essays written over several years by William Arnal and Russell McCutcheon, specialists in two very different areas of the field (one, a scholar of Christian origins and the other working on the history of the modern study of religion). They share a convergent perspective: not simply that both the category and concept "religion" is a construct, something that we cannot assume to be "natural" or universal, but also that the ability to think and act "religiously" is, quite specifically, a modern, political category in its origins and effects, the mere by-product of modern secularism. These collected essays, substantially rewritten for this volume, advance current scholarly debates on secularism-debates which, the authors argue, insufficiently theorize the sacred/secular, church/state, and private/public binaries by presupposing religion (often under the guise of such terms as "religiosity," "faith," or "spirituality") to historically precede the nation-state. The essays return, again and again, to the question of what "religion"-word and concept-accomplishes, now, for those who employ it, whether at the popular, political, or scholarly level. The focus here for two writers from seemingly different fields is on the efficacy, costs, and the tactical work carried out by dividing the world between religious and political, church and state, sacred and profane. As the essays make clear, this is no simple matter. Part of the reason for the incoherence and at the same time the stubborn persistence of both the word and idea of "religion" is precisely its multi-faceted nature, its plurality, its amenability to multiple and often self-contradictory uses. Offering an argument that builds as they are read, these papers explore these uses, including the work done by positing a human orientation to "religion," the political investment in both the idea of religion and the academic study of religion, and the ways in which the field of religious studies works to shape, and stumbles against, its animating conception.

1 Recce: Behind Enemy Lines takes the reader into the ‘inner sanctum’ of the Recces. In their own words, Recce operators recount some of the life-threatening operations they conducted under great secrecy in the late 1970s.

Those who were there give first-hand accounts of the tension, anticipation, fear, adrenalin, exhaustion, thirst and grief they experienced, but also of the humorous moments and the close bonds of friendship that were forged in situations of mortal danger.

1 Recce: Agter vyandelike linies neem die leser tot in die Recces se “binnekamer”. In hul eie woorde vertel Recce-operateurs van die lewensgevaarlike operasies wat hulle onder groot geheimhouding in die laat 1970’s in Angola, Rhodesië en Mosambiek uitgevoer het. Dié wat daar was vertel van die spanning, afwagting, vrees, adrenalien, moegheid, dors en hartseer wat hulle beleef het, maar ook van die humoristiese momente en die hegte vriendskapsbande wat hulle gesmee het.

Andre Laurendeau was the most widely respected French-Canadian nationalist of his generation. The story of his life is to a striking degree also the story of French-Canadian nationalism from the 1930s to the 1960s, that period of massive societal change when Quebec evolved from a traditional to a modern society. The most insightful intellectual voice of the nationalist movement, he was at the tumultuous centre of events as a young separatist in the 1930s; an anti-conscription activist and reform-minded provincial politician in the 1940s; and an influential journalist, editor of the Montreal daily Le Devoir, in the 1950s. At the same time he played an important role in Quebec's cultural life both as a novelist and playwright and as a well-known radio and television personality. In tracing his life story, this biography sheds indispensable light not only on the development of Laurendeau's own nationalist thought, but on his people's continuing struggle to preserve the national values that make them distinct.

Every year, there are several hundred attacks on India's Christians. These attacks are carried out by violent anti-minority activists, many of them provoked by what they perceive to be Christians' propensity for aggressive proselytization, and/or by rumored or real conversions to the faith. In this violence, Pentecostal Christians are disproportionately targeted. Bauman finds that the violence against Pentecostals and Pentecostalized Evangelicals in India is not just a matter of current social, cultural, political, and interreligious dynamics internal to India, but is rather related to identifiable historical trends, as well as to historical and contemporary transnational flows of people, power, and ideas. Based on extensive interviews and ethnographic work, and drawing upon the vast scholarly literature on interreligious violence, Hindu nationalism, and Christianity in India, this volume accounts for this disproportionate targeting through a detailed analysis of Indian Christian history, contemporary Indian politics, Indian social and cultural characteristics, and Pentecostal belief and practice. While some of the factors in the targeting of Pentecostals are obvious and expected (e.g., their relatively greater evangelical assertiveness), other significant factors are less acknowledged and more surprising, among them the marginalization of Pentecostals by "mainstream" Christians, the social location of Pentecostal Christians, and transnational flows of missionary personnel, theories, and funds.

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