Lobbying is vital to any business's success, yet politics can seem a dangerous world to navigate. How do you outmanoeuvre a professional negotiator on their home turf? How do you ensure you're in the right place at the right time? And, most importantly, how do you get politicians to do what you want? Drawing on thirty years' successful lobbying in European and international arenas, Darcy Nicolle lifts the veil on this elusive art. Revealing the strategies he's used and the strings he's pulled, Nicolle covers everything from the practicalities of planning campaigns and how to make sure you are the most persuasive person in the room, all the way to dealing with political risks and crises. Whether you need to lobby your local mayor or take on governments across Europe, The Secret Art of Lobbying will arm you with the tools you need to be the most influential player in the game.

By the late 1960s, in a Europe divided by the Cold War and challenged by global revolution in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, thousands of young people threw themselves into activism to change both the world and themselves. This new and exciting study of "Europe's 1968" is based on the rich oral histories of nearly 500 former activists collected by an international team of historians across fourteen countries. Activists' own voices reflect on how they were drawn into activism, how they worked and struggled together, how they combined the political and the personal in their lives, and the pride or regret with which they look back on those momentous years. Themes explored include generational revolt and activists' relationship with their families, the meanings of revolution, transnational encounters and spaces of revolt, faith and radicalism, dropping out, gender and sexuality, and revolutionary violence. Focussing on the way in which the activists themselves made sense of their revolt, this work makes a major contribution to both oral history and memory studies. This ambitious study ranges widely across Europe from Franco's Spain to the Soviet Union, and from the two Germanys to Greece, and throws new light on moments and movements which both united and divided the activists of Europe's 1968.

Caciquismo (roughly translated as "boss politics") has played a major role in Mexican political and social life. Loosely knit interest groups, or "caciques", of diverse character - syndicates, farmers, left- and right-wingers, white-collar workers - have exercised great power within Mexico's distinctive political system. The peculiarities of Mexico's system have greatly depended on this kind of informal politics, which combines repression, patronage, and charismatic leadership. As such, caciquismo fits uncomfortably within the formal analysis of laws, parties, and elections and has been relatively neglected by academics. Though its demise has often been predicted, it has survived, evolved, and adjusted to Mexico's rapid post-revolutionary transformation. Incorporating the research of historians, political scientists, sociologists, and anthropologists, this book reevaluates the crucial role of the cacique in modern Mexico. It suggests that caciquismo has survived decades of change and upheaval and remains an important, if underestimated, feature of recent Mexican politics. Contributors include Christopher Boyer (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA), Keith Brewster (University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK), Matthew Butler (Queen's University, Belfast, UK), Marco Calderon (El Colegio de Michoacan, Mexico), Maria Teresa Fernandez Aceves (Centro de Investigaciones en Estudios Superiores en Antropologia Social [CIESAS], Mexico), Rogelio Hernandez Rodriuez (El Colegio de Mexico), Stephen Lewis (California State University, Chico, USA), Salvador Maldonado Aranda (El Colegio de Michoacan, Mexico), Jennie Purnell (Boston College, USA), Jan Rus (Tzotzil Instituto de Asesoria Antropologica para la Region Maya, and Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, USA), Pieter de Vries (Wageningen University, Netherlands), and J. Eduardo Zarate H (El Colegio de Mexico, Michoacan, Mexico).

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Nazi Conspiracy and The Lincoln Conspiracy comes a true, little-known story about the first assassination attempt on John F. Kennedy, right before his inauguration.

Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans’ most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began―at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite.

On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car―a parked Buick―on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan―one that could’ve changed the course of history.

Written in the gripping, page-turning style that is the hallmark of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s bestselling series, this is a slice of history vividly brought to life. Meltzer and Mensch are at the top of their game with this brilliant exploration of what could’ve been for one of the most compelling leaders of the 20th century.

This is a study of Petrograd in the period immediately following the Russian Revolution. Formerly the imperial capital St. Petersburg, in the years after 1917 Petrograd became a revolutionary citadel. Mary McAuley's political and social history throws into relief the interplay of factors that contributed to the formation of the new Soviet state. Her detailed account of life in the city provides new insights into the progress of the Russian Revolution and the establishment, in 1921, of the Leninist political order. Bread and Justice is based on a wide array of original sources, including newspapers, pamphlets, posters, memoirs, and personal interviews. It paints a multi-dimensional picture of everyday life in post-Revolutionary Petrograd, exploring themes such as violence and unemployment, civic justice and bread rations, political ideas and cultural dreams. This is a book about the people of the city - Bolshevik commissars, imperial princesses, hungry schoolchildren, and theatre artists all make their appearance - and about the impact of the Russian Revolution on their lives. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the revolutionary process and the formation of the Soviet Union.

"A classic on post-Cold War Cuba. . . . Azicri evidences Cuba's expanding external relations with the papacy, the Economic Union, and Latin America and argues that Cuba has begun internal changes that could later create an all-national rather than a solely communist party. . . . This work is essential reading for D.C., Havana, and Miami--and is likely to anger all three."--"Choice"

"A masterful and provocative summary, analysis, and evaluation of political, economic, and cultural developments in Cuba, as well as the international relations of Cuba, in the tumultuous decade following the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the process, Azicri gives a unique insight into how and why Cuban socialism, though greatly modified in the 1990s, continues to survive."--Sinan Koont, Dickinson College

Unlikely to gratify those with strong views on either side of the political divide, Azicri's study provides an intelligent, scholarly response to the current questions posed by the Cuban Revolution.

Covering the turbulent period of the 1990s, the book examines such issues as the impact on Cuba of the Soviet Union's collapse, the country's social malaise under economic scarcity, the reorganization of its economy, changes in its political system, problems in its relations with the United States, and the renaissance of Cuban religious life in the aftermath of the pope's visit.

Azicri offers an objectively researched study that addresses many of the assumptions made by partisan participants. Demonstrating how Cuba's ongoing reform process has allowed it to avoid the fate of other Soviet bloc regimes, he maintains that Havana has continually reinvented the nature of Cuban socialism. Drawing on original sources and scholarly studies from Cuba, the United States, and elsewhere, he argues that a more restrained and limited socialism is suitable to today's Cuba and explains why such a system probably will prevail beyond Castro.

Max Azicri, professor of political science at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, is the author of "Cuba: Politics, Economics and Society" and of numerous articles on Cuban politics, society, culture, and international relations.

Jack Cade's rebellion of 1450 was one of the most important popular uprisings to take place in England during the Middle Ages. It began as an orchestrated demonstration of political protest by the inhabitants of south-eastern England against the corruption, mismanagement, and oppression of Henry VI's government. When no assurance of any remedy came from the king the rising soon collapsed into violence. This is the first full-length study of Cade's revolt to be published this century. I. M. W. Harvey charts the course of the rebellion and its associated troubles during the early 1450s, and explores the nature of the society which gave rise to these upheavals. She makes full use of the available contemporary evidence, as well as the work of subsequent historians, in order to uncover the identities of the rebels, explain their actions, assess their relations with the magnates, and to examine their achievements. Dr Harvey's lucid and scholarly analysis of Jack Cade's rebellion helps make intelligible the eventual collapse of Henry VI's reign into the Wars of the Roses.

The 2017 publication of Betrayal of the Promise, the report that detailed the systematic nature of state capture, marked a key moment in South Africa's most recent struggle for democracy. In the face of growing evidence of corruption and of the weakening of state and democratic institutions, it provided, for the first time, a powerful analysis of events that helped galvanise resistance within the Tripartite Alliance and across civil society.

Working often secretly, the authors consolidated, for the first time, large amounts of evidence from a variety of sources. They showed that the Jacob Zuma administration was not simply a criminal network but part of an audacious political project to break the hold of whites and white business on the economy and to create a new class of black industrialists. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) such as Eskom and Transnet were central to these plans. The report introduced a whole new language to discuss state capture, showing how SOEs were `repurposed', how political power was shifting away from constitutional bodies to `kitchen cabinets', and how a `shadow state' at odds with the country's constitutional framework was being built.

Shadow State is an updated version of the original, explosive report that changed South Africa's recent history.

Big ideas that just might save the world. the Guardian A serious book on an important subject. Without imagination, where are we? Sir Quentin Blake What if we took play seriously? What if we considered imagination vital to our health? What if we followed nature’s lead? What if school nurtured young imaginations? What if things turned out okay? Rob Hopkins asks the most important question that society has somehow forgotten – What If? Hopkins explores what we must do to revive and replenish our collective imagination. If we can rekindle that precious creative spark, whole societies and cultures can change – rapidly, dramatically and unexpectedly – for the better. There really is no end to what we might accomplish. From What Is to What If is the most inspiring, courageous and necessary book you will read this year; a call to action to reclaim and unleash the power of our imaginations and to solve the problems of our time. Meet the individuals and communities around the world who are doing it now – and creating brighter futures for us all.  At last, we have a design for our dreams. I believe we have a debt of honour to take action. Please read this book and defy the herd. Are we golden or are we debris? Mark Stewart, musician, The Pop Group and Mark Stewart & The Maffia

When it was originally published in 1984, Militant was widely acclaimed as a masterly work of investigative journalism. Although the rise of Jeremy Corbyn is to be attributed to more than hard-left entrism, to some within the party, Crick's book must seem like a lesson from history.Militant was a secret Trotskyite organisation that consistently denied being a party, though at its peak in the mid-1980s it could boast around 8,000 members, all of whom also belonged to the Labour Party. Militant operated clandestinely inside the Labour Party, edging out moderates at grass-roots level and recruiting people to its own ranks. Whilst eventually most of its leaders were expelled, it caused damaging rifts within Labour. Crick's book explores the origins, organisation and aims of Militant. It also explores the famous boss politics of Derek Hatton and Militant in Liverpool, and the party hierarchy's determined and ultimately successful attempts to squash the tendency.An important historical document, it is today seen as a field guide to how hard-left factions can infiltrate the Labour party, with some in the centre of the party allegedly urging its supporters to treat the long unavailable book as a 'war manual'.

Leon and his twin Norman were born in August 1929, the youngest of four children born to Mary and Mark Levy, immigrants from Lithuania. His father died when Leon was six; to heroic degree, his mother carried the family – financially, practically and emotionally – in her widowhood. Leon was an intensely bookish boy but left school aged sixteen to help makes ends meet through a series of jobs. Deeply affected by the events of the Second World War and the Holocaust, Leon was radicalised in the Hashomer Hatza’ir, a left-wing Zionist youth movement. He was seventeen when he joined the Communist Party and became a committed young activist.

In 1953, at the age of twenty-four, Leon became a full-time trade unionist. ‘It was a defining moment in my life story,’ he writes. ‘It gave practical form to my political beliefs; it also determined the shape and scope of my life. It transpired that I would spend the next six decades and more working in trade unions, industrial relations and mediation.’

A comrade in the trade union movement nicknamed Leon, TsabaTsaba – which means “here, there and everywhere”. Anyone who reads Leon’s account of his years as a full-time unionist will agree that the soubriquet was well earned. (Alongside trade union work, Leon was also committed to the remarkable Discussion Club, which he co-founded and ran throughout the 1950s; he was also secretary of the South African Peace Council from 1951 to 1961.) In the mid-1950s, he was part of a small group of progressive trade unionists who pushed for the formation of the first non-racial trade union federation in South Africa. These aspirations were realised in March 1955 with the launch of the South African Congress of Trade Unions (SACTU). Later that year Leon was elected president and remained in that position for nine years. SACTU linked day-to-day concerns of workers with support for national liberation and the abolition of apartheid and was one of the five organisations which formed the Congress Alliance. As SACTU leader, Leon served on the committee that directed the activities of the Alliance; he was present at Kliptown when the Freedom Charter was adopted – and as SACTU president was one of the five original signatories of the Freedom Charter.

Political activism of this order came at a high price. Leon Levy was served with banning orders and arrested several times; he was Accused No 4 of the 156 people arrested and charged with treason, and from November 1958 was one of the final 30 (and with Helen Joseph one of only two whites) who faced charges until the trial was finally dismissed in March 1961. He was detained for five months during the 1960 State of Emergency. In May 1963 he was the first person to be detained under the notorious General Laws Amendment Act, known as the 90-day Act. Unable to continue his work he chose to go into exile in the United Kingdom. There, he studied politics, economics and industrial relations at Oxford – and then applied what he had learned in a series of positions in industrial relations. After 1994, he was determined to make the skills and knowledge that he had acquired available to a democratic South Africa – and he and his wife Lorna returned to the country of their birth in 1997. In a remarkable final phase of his career, Leon took office shortly after his 70th birthday as a full-time commissioner for the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration – and spent the next 19 years in this capacity.

Khulu Radebe had had a full life. Then, at the age of 50, he discovered that he was a king.

As a teenager, Khulu Radebe was part of the Alexandra Township 1976 uprisings. Arrested and sent to Robben Island, he was one of the youngest prisoners there. Returning to Alex, he participated in the township’s 1986 Six Days War. Radebe joined the armed struggle, repeatedly dodging death from the enemy and from fellow MK soldiers in Angola.

At age 50, and proving a prophet’s prediction correct, Khulu Radebe learned about his royal roots. He was informed that he was the ruler of the AmaHlubi people of the Embo Nation, a nation that stretches along the east coast of Africa.

In chronicling his extraordinary life and times in this landmark autobiography, Radebe, in a humane and vivid way, chronicles too the revolutionary path for freedom in South Africa. Alexandra Township in Johannesburg is a central character in this book and Radebe reveals an astonishing story of the post-1990 war between Inkatha and the ANC in Alex.

Gripping, bold and original, Comrade King, is an unforgettable story.

What is it like to be in the I.R.A. - or at their mercy? This fascinating study explores the lives and deaths of the enemies and victims of the County Cork I.R.A. between 1916 and 1923 - the most powerful and deadly branch of the I.R.A. during one of the most turbulent periods in twentieth-century Ireland. These years saw the breakdown of the British legal system and police authority, the rise of republican violence, and the escalation of the conflict into a full-scale guerilla war, leading to a wave of riots, ambushes, lootings, and reprisal killings, with civilians forming the majority of victims in this unacknowledged civil war. Religion may have provided the starting point for the conflict, but class prejudice, patriotism, and personal grudges all fuelled the development and continuation of widespread violence. Using an unprecedented range of sources - many of them only recently made public - Peter Hart explores the motivation behind such activity. His conclusions not only reveal a hidden episode of Ireland's troubled past but provide valuable insights into the operation of similar terrorist groups today.

New edition of the late Stephen Ellis' meticulously researched book that penetrates the secrecy of the ANC in exile for the first time.

After the ANC was banned by the apartheid government in 1960, many of its leaders and members were forced to leave the country. During the next three decades, it had to operate in exile and underground. Yet the real history of this period remains shrouded in mystery.

Some events, such as the Rhodesian campaign of 1967–1968 and the Kabwe conference of 1985, are well known, but lesser known are the intense factional struggles within the organisation, recurring pro-democracy protests and the creation of a security apparatus that inspired widespread fear. Some networks within the exiled ANC became heavily involved in corruption, even colluding with elements of the apartheid security police and secret services.

External Mission aims to provide a full account of the ANC’s years in exile, penetrating the secrecy the organisation erected around itself and testing the myths that emerged from that period. It is based on an exceptionally wide range of sources, including the ANC’s own archives and foreign archives such as those in East Germany, where the movement’s security personnel were trained.

Incisive and revealing, External Mission is key to understanding South Africa today.

The Handbook on Democracy and Security offers an insightful new interpretation of the topic that reframes the contemporary challenge of democracy away from competing ideologies or external existential threats, and centres on the security of democracy in the minds and lived experience of its citizens. With a global focus, it provides a cutting edge understanding of contemporary developments in democratic breakdown, investigating the role of new media, social media and the Internet. Expert contributors explore how democracy is affected by the resurgence of populism, terrorism and migration alongside the decline of independent mass media and associated conspiracy theories. The Handbook further argues that the security of government by the people is best understood through the security of people and examines the analysis of democratic security. Providing a diverse range of perspectives on how democratic breakdown occurs, this Handbook will be an excellent read for political scientists interested in human security and the effect of social media on democracy. Policymakers interested in policy prescriptions and stabilizing democratic backsliding will also find this an illuminating and informative resource.

One of the longest and seemingly most intractable civil wars in Latin America was brought to an end by the signing of the Peace Accords between the Guatemalan government and the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG) in December 1996. The essays in this volume evaluate progress made in the implementation of the peace agreements and signal some of the key challenges for future political and institutional reform. The volume opens with a chapter by Gustavo Porras, the government's main negotiator in the peace process. The first section then examines the issue of demilitarization. This is followed by aspects of indigenous rights in the peace process, including conceptual frameworks for rights advancement, the harmonization of state law and customary law, and the challenges of nation-state and citizenship construction. The next section examines issues of truth, justice, and reconciliation, and assesses prospects for the Truth Commission. The volume closes with an analysis of different aspects of political reform in Guatemala and includes comments made on the chapters and developed in the debate which took place at the conference on which it is based. The contributors are Marta Altolaguirre*, Marta Elena Casa?s*, Demetrio Cojt?*, Edgar Guti?rrez*, Frank La Rue, Roger Plant, Gustavo Porras*, Alfonso Portillo*, Jennifer Schirmer, Rachel Sieder, David Stoll, Rosalina Tuyuc*, Anna Vinegrad, Richard Wilson (* chapters in Spanish).

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.

In December 1972, Jean McConville, a thirty-eight-year-old mother of ten, was dragged from her Belfast home by masked intruders, her children clinging to her legs. They never saw her again. Her abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes.

Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

"My story starts at the very end of the journey to equal marriage rights. I stand on the shoulders of giants..."In the future, people will find it difficult to believe that until 2014, somewhere between 5 and 10 per cent of Britain's population were excluded from marriage.As Equalities Minister during the coalition government, Lynne Featherstone played a fundamental role in rectifying this. From setting the wheels in motion within government, to her experiences of the abuse with which the gay community is regularly confronted, through her rebuttals against the noise and fury of her opponents, and finally to the making of history, Lynne details the surprising twists and turns of the fight. Filled with astonishing revelations about finding allies in unexpected places and encountering resistance from unforeseen foes, Equal Ever After is an honest account of one woman's pivotal efforts during the turbulent final mile.This is real, lived history - recent history. Many of us celebrated on the day the dream became reality; many of us know people whose lives were changed by the events described here.In this inside story, Lynne reveals the emotional lows and the exhilarating highs involved in turning hard-won social acceptance into tangible legal equality.

On 21 December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 departed London Heathrow for New York. Shortly after take-off, a bomb detonated, killing all aboard and devastating the small Scottish town of Lockerbie below. Only one man has ever been convicted of the crime: Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, though few believe that he acted alone.In 2009, a request was made by Libya for al-Megrahi's release from prison on compassionate grounds after he had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. The decision to grant or deny that request fell squarely and exclusively on the shoulders of one man: Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's Justice Secretary from 2007 to 2014.Detailing the build-up to the atrocity and the carnage left in its wake, MacAskill narrates the international investigation that followed and the diplomatic intrigue that saw a Scottish court convened in the Netherlands. He describes the controversial release of al-Megrahi, explains the international dimensions involved and lays bare the commercial and security interests that ran in the background throughout the investigation and trial. Finally, he answers how and why it happened - and who was really responsible for the worst terrorist attack to have occurred on British soil before or since.

The Discontented tells the heroic story of the Hungarian uprisings against the Habsburgs in 17th and 18th centuries. Led by the charismatic trio of Imre Thoekoely, Helena Zrinyi and Ferenc Rakoczi II, there were moments when the rebels nearly succeeded in securing the independence of Hungary from the Habsburg Emperors. However, against a background of international intrigue and superpower politics, the valiant actions of the kurucs were ultimately doomed and their leaders forced into exile in Turkey. Here is a tale of hubris, betrayal, love and reckless courage that remains inspirational centuries later.