Legendary lawyer of the people, Louis Brandeis, displays his knowledge of the banking financial system and describes how it asserts staggering control over the economy of the United States. As relevant today as it was when first published in 1914, this book serves to demystify aspects of the banking system which are lost on those who are not employed within the finance sector. Explaining how banks have become a powerful oligarchy, Brandeis describes how the money trusts hold enormous and growing influence upon almost every large industry in the United States and much of the wider world. The monopolies of money trusts, and their role in controlling the economy, is described in detail. The deposits and savings of millions of ordinary Americans are put to work by the likes of J. P. Morgan who both lend to and purchase other banks and parts of companies. The trend towards small banks combining into larger entities, and the anti-competitive monopolies this entails are detailed.

Studs Terkel was an American icon who had no use for America's cult of celebrity. He was a leftist who valued human beings over political dogma. In scores of books and thousands of radio and television broadcasts, Studs paid attention - and respect - to "ordinary" human beings of all classes and colours, as they talked about their lives as workers, dreamers, survivors. Alan Wieder's Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation is the first comprehensive book about this man. Drawing from over fifty interviews of people who knew and worked with Studs, Alan Wieder creates a multi-dimensional portrait of a run-of-the-mill guy from Chicago who, in public life, became an acclaimed author and raconteur, while managing, in his private life, to remain a mensch. We see Studs, the eminent oral historian, the inveterate and selfless supporter of radical causes, especially civil rights. We see the actor, the writer, the radio host, the jazz lover, whose early work in television earned him a notorious place on the McCarthy blacklist. We also see Studs the family man and devoted husband to his adored wife, Ida. Studs Terkel: Politics, Culture, But Mostly Conversation allows us to realize the importance of reaching through our own daily realities - increasingly clogged with disembodied, impersonal interaction - to find value in actual face-time with real humans. Wieder's book also shows us why such contact might be crucial to those of us in movements rising up against global tyranny and injustice. The book is simply the best introduction available to this remarkable man. Reading it will lead people to Terkel's enormous body of work, with benefits they will cherish thr

Hilaire Belloc's landmark study Characters of the Reformation argues that Western Europe's break from the Catholic Church was driven by a land-grab and looting of Church property by European noblemen. Belloc has little admiration for the so-called leaders of the time and credits the Reformation to behind-the-scenes players.

This excellent reference source brings together hard-to-find information on the constituent units of the Russian Federation. The introduction examines the Russian Federation as a whole, followed by a chronology, demographic and economic statistics, and a review of the Federal Government. The second section comprises territorial surveys, each of which includes a current map. This edition includes surveys covering the annexed (and disputed) territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, as well as updated surveys of each of the other 83 federal subjects. The third section comprises a select bibliography of books. The fourth section features a series of indexes, listing the territories alphabetically, by Federal Okrug and Economic Area. Users will also find a gazetteer of selected alternative and historic names, a list of the territories abolished, created or reconstituted in the post-Soviet period, and an index of more than 100 principal cities, detailing the territory in which each is located.

As the candidacies of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have proven, Americans are mad as hell about the problems facing our country. George Noory hears these problems every night, all night, and this is how he would deal with them. This is Mad as Hell. --- I'm angry because sometimes I feel like a stranger in America. We live in a dangerous world that is sorely in need of an effective political system that deals with the ongoing destruction of the middle class, an aging population, permeable borders, technology out of control, and shocking, mindless violence and wars. But we can bring back the America that makes us proud. It will take hard work and pulling together as a society. People are stressed because they don't know where the world is heading or where it is taking them. With a radio show heard by millions, I consider myself not an entertainer or someone to dictate how we should live, but a facilitator who can help guide the path chosen. I have been called a voice in the darkness. The concepts I deal with are not only on the cutting edge of science and technology, but with subjects as provocative as aliens and angels, as challenging as supervolcanos and the fire and brimstone of the End Time. Join me by reading why I am mad . . . and maybe you will get as angry as I am about conditions in the country we love.

Despite best intentions, the reality is that "development" is still conceptualised, planned and "delivered" by change agents and their institutions in a top-down manner. This is problematic for both the beneficiaries and government change agents as it amplifies rather than lessens service delivery challenges and does not lead to a grassroots planning partnership. Development, change and the change agent - facilitation at grassroots contextualises the change agent through his or her relationship with the local beneficiaries of development. This updated second edition, previously titled The development change agent - a micro-level approach to development, consists of thirteen chapters contributed by seventeen authors representing nine universities. The key theme is the challenge to establish authentic and empowering participation, and the importance of change agent and local development beneficiary engagement and partnerships in achieving this. It covers an interdisciplinary field of development-related foci using a holistic, people-centred approach which includes grassroots facilitation, capacity building, empowerment and participation, developmental local government and good governance, and national development planning. It also incorporates social capital, indigenous knowledge systems, action research methodology and project management. Scholars, development practitioners, development consultants, those working for NGOs and CBOs, development corporations/agencies, and politicians and government officials, specifically local ones, will find the publication relevant in confronting contemporary developmental challenges. Francois Theron is a senior lecturer at the School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University. Trained in anthropology and development studies, he fully supports interdisciplinary research. In 2014, he co-edited Development, the State and Civil Society in South Africa (Van Schaik Publishers) with Ismail Davids. Ntuthuko Mchunu is a project manager for community-based tourism development at the City of Cape Town municipality. In addition to his public and development management qualifications at Stellenbosch University, he has extensive practical experience in the local government sphere as a change agent. Theron and Mchunu have partnered in numerous previous projects, leading to this 2016 publication.

COVID-19 pandemic has created the most significant disruption of education systems that history has ever recorded in all continents. Closures of schools and other learning spaces have impacted hugely on the world's student population. The book contributes to the debate on experiences during the pandemics by portraying the virus's continued virulence, education disruption, impact on the social and economic sectors, medical concerns, and local and global responses. The book provides a variety of stimulated innovations within the education sector, approaches in support of education and training continuity, the accelerated changes in modes of delivering quality education, distance learning problems and the promising future of learning. Case Studies from different countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America have examined the massive efforts made in a short time to respond to the shocks to local and global education systems. The COVID-19 crisis and the unparalleled education disruption is far from over. So, what is the way forward? The research chapters provide experiences and new perspectives of stopping a learning crisis from becoming a generational cataclysm.

Southeast Asian Affairs is the only one of its kind: a comprehensive annual review devoted to the international relations, politics, and economies of the region and its nation-states. The collected volumes of Southeast Asian Affairs have become a compendium documenting the dynamic evolution of regional and national developments in Southeast Asia from the end of the 'second' Vietnam War to the alarms and struggles of today. Over the years, the editors have drawn on the talents and expertise not only of ISEAS' own professional research staff and visiting fellows, but have also reached out to tap leading scholars and analysts elsewhere in Southeast and East Asia, Australia and New Zealand, North America, and Europe. A full list of contributors over forty years reads like a kind of who's who in Southeast Asian Studies.