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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political control & freedoms > Political control & influence > Political oppression & persecution > General
"Wyman's book is the only one that comprehensively, and
sensitively, depicts the plight of the postwar refugees in Western
Europe." M. Mark Stolarik, University of Ottawa "This is a
fascinating and very moving book." International Migration Review
"Wyman has written a highly readable account of the movement of
diverse ethnic and cultural groups of Europe's displaced persons,
1945-1951. An analysis of the social, economic, and political
circumstances within which relocation, resettlement, and
repatriation of millions of people occurred, this study is equally
a study in diplomacy, in international relations, and in social
history. . . . A vivid and compassionate recreation of the events
and circumstances within which displaced persons found themselves,
of the strategies and means by which people survived or did not,
and an account of the major powers in response to an unprecedented
human crisis mark this as an important book." Choice "Wyman
interviewed some eighty DPs as well as employees of various
agencies who served them; he cites a broad range of published
primary sources, secondary sources, and some archival material. . .
. This book presents a useful overview and should stimulate further
research." Journal of American Ethnic History"
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Ruin Star
(Paperback)
Matt Wright; Illustrated by James L. Cook
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R364
Discovery Miles 3 640
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Ships in 10 - 15 working days
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George Soros is among the world's most prominent public figures. He
is one of the history's most successful investors and his
philanthropy, led by the Open Society Foundations, has donated over
$14 billion to promote democracy and human rights in more than 120
countries. But in recent years, Soros has become the focus of
sustained right-wing attacks in the United States and around the
world based on his commitment to open society, progressive politics
and his Jewish background. In this brilliant and spirited book,
Soros offers a compendium of his philosophy, a clarion call-to-arms
for the ideals of an open society: freedom, democracy, rule of law,
human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a
universal idea. In this age of nationalism, populism,
anti-Semitism, and the spread of authoritarian governments, Soros's
mission to support open societies is as urgent as it is important.
There Are No Dead Here is the untold story of three brave
Colombians who stood up to the paramilitary groups that, starting
in the mid-1990s, decimated the country in the name of
counterinsurgency and drug profits. With the complicity of much of
Colombia's military and political establishment and in a climate of
widespread fear and denial, the paramilitaries massacred, raped,
and tortured thousands, and seized the land of millions of peasants
forced to flee their homes. The United States, more interested in
the appearance of success in its own War on Drugs, largely ignored
them. Few dared to confront them. Drawing on hundreds of hours of
interviews and five years on the ground in Colombia, Maria
McFarland Sanchez-Moreno takes readers from the sweltering Medellin
streets where criminal investigators constantly looked over their
shoulders for assassins on motorcycles, through the countryside
where paramilitaries wiped out entire towns in gruesome massacres,
and into the corridors of the presidential palace in Colombia's
capital, Bogota. Throughout, she tells the interconnected stories
of three very different Colombians bound by their commitment to the
truth. The first is the gregarious Jesus Maria Valle, whose
prophetic warnings about the military's complicity with the
paramilitaries got him killed in 1998. A decade later, Valle's
friend, the shy prosecutor Ivan Velasquez, became an unlikely hero
when his groundbreaking investigations landed a third of the
country's congress in prison for conspiring with paramilitaries,
and put him in the crosshairs of Colombia's then wildly popular
president, US protege Alvaro Uribe. When Uribe's smear campaign
against Velasquez threatened to bury the truth, the scrawny
investigative journalist Ricardo Calderon exposed the lies,
revealing that the paramilitaries' reach extended all the way into
the presidency. Thanks to the efforts of Valle, Velasquez, and
Calderon, Colombians now know the truth about the brutality and
corruption that swept like a lethal virus through the country's
society and political system. And slowly, the country is breaking
free from the paramilitaries' grip.
"When the plane landed, they untied my blindfold. I found there
were women and children on one side and men on the other side of
the plane. They were saying, 'They are talking us to Mogadishu.'
The Kenyans who brought me there were still here. I was crying and
screaming and telling them to let me go as I had my passport and
that I was from Dubai and they should send me back. One man tried
to keep me quiet by saying, 'You are coming with us.' In total
there were twenty-two women and children. Apart from me and another
lady, everyone else was three to eight months pregnant."--2007
statement to Cageprisoners
Following the 2005 bombing of London's transportation
infrastructure, Tony Blair declared that "the rules of the game
have changed." Few anticipated the extent to which global
counterterrorism would circumvent cherished laws, but profiling,
incommunicado detention, rendition, and torture have become the
accepted protocols of national security. In this book, Asim Qureshi
travels to East Africa, Sudan, Pakistan, Bosnia, and the United
States to record the testimonies of victims caught in
counterterrorism's new game. Qureshi's exhaustive efforts reveal
the larger phenomenon that has changed the way governments view
justice. He focuses on the profiling of Muslims by security
services and concurrent mass arrests, detaining individuals without
filing charges, domestic detention policies in North America, and
the effect of Guant?namo on global perceptions of law and
imprisonment.
How was it possible to write history in the Soviet Union, under
strict state control and without access to archives? What methods
of research did these 'historians' - be they academic, that is
based at formal institutions, or independent - rely on? And how was
their work influenced by their complex and shifting relationships
with the state? To answer these questions, Barbara Martin here
tracks the careers of four bold and important dissidents: Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, Roy Medvedev, Aleksandr Nekrich and Anton
Antonov-Ovseenko. Based on extensive archival research and
interviews (with some of the authors themselves, as well as those
close to them), the result is a nuanced and very necessary history
of Soviet dissident history writing, from the relative
liberalisation of de-Stalinisation through increasing repression
and persecution in the Brezhnev era to liberalisation once more
during perestroika. In the process Martin sheds light onto late
Soviet society and its relationship with the state, as well as the
ways in which this dissidence participated in weakening the Soviet
regime during Perestroika. This is important reading for all
scholars working on late Soviet history and society.
A FAMILY STORY AND THE TALE OF A NATION. Ai Weiwei - one of the
world's most famous artists and activists - weaves a century-long
epic tale of China through the story of his own life and that of
his father, Ai Qing, the nation's most celebrated poet.
'Engrossing...a remarkable story' Sunday Times Here, through the
sweeping lens of his own and his father's life, Ai Weiwei tells an
epic tale of China over the last 100 years, from the Cultural
Revolution to the modern-day Chinese Communist Party. Here is the
story of a childhood spent in desolate exile after his father, Ai
Qing, once China's most celebrated poet, fell foul of the
authorities. Here is his move to America as a young man and his
return to China, his rise from unknown to art-world superstar and
international rights activist. Here is his extraordinary account of
how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime.
It's the story of a father and a son, of exceptional creativity and
passionate belief, and of how two indomitable spirits enabled the
world to understand their country. 'A story of inherited resilience
and self-determination' Observer 'A majestic and exquisitely
serious masterpiece about his China... One of the great voices of
our time' Andrew Solomon 'Intimate, unflinching...an instant
classic' Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition
'I beseech you to read this account' - Christopher Hitchens A
magnificent, harrowing testimony to the voiceless victims of North
Korea. Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of a North Korean
concentration camp to escape the 'hermit kingdom' and tell his
story to the world. This memoir reveals the human suffering in his
camp, with its forced labour, frequent public executions and
near-starvation rations. Kang eventually escaped to South Korea via
China to give testimony to the hardships and atrocities that
constitute the lives of the thousands of people still detained in
the gulags today. Part horror story, part historical document, part
memoir, part political tract, this story of one young man's
personal suffering finally gives eye-witness proof to this
neglected chapter of modern history.
Naomi Mitchison's account of the life and work of the Afrikaner
lawyer and political activist Bram Fischer (1908-1975) was first
published in 1973, two years before his death. She writes from the
perspective of her own experience - gained during regular visits
and a commitment to Southern Africa, particularly Botswana, from
the 1960s onwards - to present the key elements and actors in the
story of the country and the peoples of South Africa. Above all, of
Bram Fischer, who gave up a life of privilege to oppose,
professionally and underground, the Government's 'monstrous policy'
of apartheid.
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