A bold, urgent appeal from the acclaimed columnist and political commentator, addressing one of the most important issues of our time.

In Peter Beinart’s view, one story dominates Jewish communal life: that of persecution and victimhood. It is a story that erases much of the nuance of Jewish religious tradition and warps our understanding of Israel and Palestine. After Gaza, where Jewish texts, history, and language have been deployed to justify mass slaughter and starvation, Beinart argues, Jews must tell a new story. After this war, whose horror will echo for generations, they must do nothing less than offer a new answer to the question: What does it mean to be a Jew?

Beinart imagines an alternate narrative, which would draw on other nations’ efforts at moral reconstruction and a different reading of Jewish tradition. A story in which Israeli Jews have the right to equality, not supremacy, and in which Jewish and Palestinian safety are not mutually exclusive but intertwined. One that recognizes the danger of venerating states at the expense of human life.

Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza is a provocative argument that will expand and inform one of the defining conversations of our time. It is a book that only Peter Beinart could write: a passionate yet measured work that brings together his personal experience, his commanding grasp of history, his keen understanding of political and moral dilemmas, and a clear vision for the future.

The founder of the first female-focused recovery program offers a groundbreaking look at alcohol and a radical new path to sobriety.

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at baby showers and work events, brunch and book club, graduations and funerals. Yet no one ever questions alcohol’s ubiquity—in fact, the only thing ever questioned is why someone doesn’t drink. It is a qualifier for belonging and if you don’t imbibe, you are considered an anomaly. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some kind of magic elixir, though it is anything but.

When Holly Whitaker decided to seek help after one too many benders, she embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What’s more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before. Fueled by her own emerging feminism, she also realized that the predominant systems of recovery are archaic, patriarchal, and ineffective for the unique needs of women and other historically oppressed people—who don’t need to lose their egos and surrender to a male concept of God, as the tenets of Alcoholics Anonymous state, but who need to cultivate a deeper understanding of their own identities and take control of their lives. When Holly found an alternate way out of her own addiction, she felt a calling to create a sober community with resources for anyone questioning their relationship with drinking, so that they might find their way as well. Her resultant feminine-centric recovery program focuses on getting at the root causes that lead people to overindulge and provides the tools necessary to break the cycle of addiction, showing us what is possible when we remove alcohol and destroy our belief system around it.

Written in a relatable voice that is honest and witty, Quit Like a Woman is at once a groundbreaking look at drinking culture and a road map to cutting out alcohol in order to live our best lives without the crutch of intoxication. You will never look at drinking the same way again.

In what will surely become a classic of South African non-fiction, Led by Shepherds begins with twelve-year-old Jeffrey Rakabe leaving his village to attend an initiation ceremony, believing it to be the key to his manhood. But the weeks-long rite of passage in the mountains is a far cry from the adventure he’d imagined.

Years later, as a student, Rakabe discovers the nurturing world of books and thrives within the hush of the Johannesburg Public Library.

The presence of caring women in his life, from his concerned mother and supportive partner to a librarian who feeds his intellectual curiosity with a steady supply of literature, spur Rakabe to investigate the possible links between the koma ritual, awash with misogynistic language, and gender-based violence in SA.

Part memoir, part manifesto, Led by Shepherds is a moving, vital and controversial book and Jeffrey Rakabe a brave voice for a new generation.

The Zondo Commission of Inquiry was one of the most important political developments in modern South African history. The commission sat for years, hearing the evidence of 300 witnesses and gathering a vast quantity of documents.

The result is a damning and sometimes searing account of the state take over: how the Gupta family found willing acolytes in the state, and set about systematically looting the country and destroying institutions of democracy. There is little doubt that understanding South Africa’s political history, its current malaise and its political future requires an understanding of the commission’s work. The commission’s final findings, however, run to over 5 000 pages. Reading all of this material is a daunting and overwhelming task for even the most dedicated citizen.

Zondo at your Fingertips solves this problem. In straightforward and accessible language, author Paul Holden sets out the work of the commission, its findings and recommendations. Holden is well placed to do so: he gave evidence before the Zondo Commission over multiple days, tracing the ways in which the Gupta family captured and looted.

Zondo at your Fingertips summarises concisely each volume of the commission’s final findings, and communicates the commission’s sometimes complex legal discussions clearly and candidly.

But Holden does not just summarise: he also evaluates the commission’s findings, highlighting the good, the bad and the ugly of it’s work. In so doing, he points to stones left unturned, leads that must be followed and warnings to heed.

In 2011 while riding his motorbike through Mali, on his way home from London to Johannesburg, Stephen McGown was taken captive in Timbuktu by Al Qaeda. He was held captive for almost six years giving him the unenviable record of Al Qaeda’s longest held prisoner.

Together with writer Tudor Caradoc-Davies, he wrote his book Six Years With Al Qaeda: The Stephen McGown Story. In this inspirational biography Steve uncovers the extraordinary lengths he went through to survive; from learning French and Arabic, converting to Islam and accepting a name given to him by his captors. His aim was to raise his status among Al Qaeda, keep himself alive and hopefully make his way back home.

Thousands of kilometres away in Johannesburg, the shock of his kidnapping hit his wife Cath and the rest of the McGown family. Working every option they could find, from established diplomatic protocols to the murky back channels of the kidnap game, they set to work on trying to free Steve.

Months turned to years and while the captive-captor dynamic was ever-present, Steve witnessed first hand what no westerner has ever seen before, giving him a nuanced perspective on one of the worlds most feared terrorist organisations.

Weaving in fifty years of experience with Israel, Bernard-Henri Lévy analyzes global responses to October 7, the new virulent waves of the oldest hatred in the world: anti-Semitism, why Israel is waging this existential war against barbarism alone, and what’s at stake for Israel and the world. Bernard-Henri Lévy’s Israel Alone is a passionate and outraged cri-de-coeur, about the loneliness of Israel and the tragedy of October 7, starting with Lévy’s eyewitness account the day after the pogroms.

On October 8, 2023, Bernard-Henri Lévy flew to Israel to bear witness to the unprecedented invasion and massacre committed by Hamas. Israel Alone begins here and weaves in Lévy’s fifty years on the ground in Israel, from his first trip in 1967, his experiences writing on all the conflicts since, and his participation in various peace plans and contacts with all the Israeli leaders from Menachem Begin to Shimon Peres and from Ariel Sharon to Yitzak Shamir and Yitzak Rabin.

From his unique philosophical and humanist perspective, Lévy analyzes the ultimate evil unleashed on Israel on October 7 and delves into how the Islamic Republic of Iran, Russia, radical Islamist groups, Turkey, and China have played roles and profited from this tragedy. The book addresses how October 7, though historic in scope, became, within weeks, a “detail” in the global consciousness amid a worldwide eruption of anti-Semitism, cloaked in anti-Zionism. Lévy deconstructs the arguments of those calling for a “cease-fire now” without the release of all hostages and of those who demand that October 7 be seen within a greater “context.” Lévy’s meditation on the soul of Zionism and Israel shows why this war is existential, not only for Israel but for the global West.

And yet, despite the urgency and critical nature of this war, Israel takes it on alone.

Lévy analyzes, today, why this is so and why Israel’s solitude is greater than ever.

President Cyril Ramaphosa, Nelson Mandela’s preferred successor, faces new problems and new choices since he won his own electoral mandate in May 2019.

In the next five years, South Africa will be changed radically by the climate crisis, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, economic stagnation and political unrest among some of its southern African neighbours, and the rising African influence of Russia and China while the West is distracted by the insurgent populism of US President Donald Trump and Brexit.

At a time of radical shifts in power across the globe, the sixth edition of An Introduction to Political Communication examines the role of the media in the political process. Brian McNair reflects on the role of communication in key events such as the referendum vote for the UK's withdrawal from the European Union, the rise of nationalist populism in Europe, and the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election. He explores the use of communication as a weapon by Islamic State and other insurgent organisations, and by Putin's Russia in its dealings with the West, including the hacking of Democratic Party emails in 2016. McNair argues that an expanding globalised public sphere and digital media network have transformed political communication, allowing political actors, from politicians and pressure groups to trade unions and terrorist organisations, to bypass traditional, established media in communicating their messages. This sixth edition of McNair's classic text has been comprehensively revised and updated to include: the 2016 US presidential election and Donald Trump's rise to power; the UK's EU referendum of 2016, the Scottish independence referendum of 2014 and the 'snap' UK general election of June 2017; the growing role in political communication of the internet and social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and their destabilising impact on the management of political crises all over the world including the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 and the disappearance of MH370, the Tianjin disaster in China and the Russian intervention in Ukraine; Islamic State's global jihad, and the use of social media as an instrument of terror; the growing capacity of WikiLeaks and other online sources, such as the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, to challenge elite control of information.

In 1994, Nelson Mandela powered the ANC to victory in South Africa’s first democratic election. Thirty years later, the ANC is fighting to escape political liquidation.

How did we get here and who will rule South Africa next?

In this gripping and fast-paced account of the state of the nation, 30 years after South Africa became a democracy, award-winning journalists Adriaan Basson and Qaanitah Hunter forensically track the demise of the ANC, from Mandela to Ramaphosa, and the rise of a new political class that will determine the next phase of South Africa’s democracy.

Drawing on years of reporting from the front line, Basson and Hunter highlight how corruption and greed subsumed a liberation movement by turning a party of freedom fighters into one of villains. They track the ANC’s involvement in corruption and underhand dealings, from the arms deal to state capture to the dollars-in-the-sofa Phala Phala scandal.

A close examination of Cyril Ramaphosa’s first term in office shows how his bold promises to turn around the ANC’s fortunes amounted to little. The book reveals previously unpublished material detailing Ramaphosa’s failures of governance and inability to address the party’s decline.

Basson and Hunter map out the likely scenarios for a coalition government after the 2024 election and what it will mean for the country if politicians such as John Steenhuisen, Julius Malema or Herman Mashaba gain access to the Union Buildings.

​Who Will Rule South Africa? is a must-read for everyone who cares about the country’s future.

"So here I am, at a psychiatric hospital, looking for myself in a building I’ve never been in before. A few nights ago, I was ready to rid myself of myself. I still am, only, in a different way. This time, I want to do away with what I hope will soon be my former self. I don’t know what is wrong with me, I never have. All I know is that my head is clouded with loud voices screaming in different frequencies; none of them making sense. With only a stony face to hide it all behind, and a pained smile to offer my friends and colleagues."

Patient 12A is Lesedi Molefi’s absorbing memoir, reflecting on his time spent in a psychiatric clinic in 2016. With vulnerability and candour, Lesedi reflects on the moments, large and small, that led him here. It is at once a personal history, an observation of how childhood experiences can have a profound effect on the adults we become, and a commentary on how mental illness remains a difficult conversation in black families.

But more than anything, Patient 12A is Lesedi’s attempt to filter out the noise in his head to find the truth, however uncomfortable that may be.

In April 2017, Pravin Gordan addressed a packed audience in St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town. It was a week after President Jacob Zuma had fired him as Finance Minister, a move that signalled South Africa had been well and truly captured. Gordhan urged the crowd not to give up hope and to ‘join the dots’ in understanding what was taking place. At this moment he became a moral authority to many, someone who could fight the corruption.

Seasoned journalists Jonathan Ancer and Chris Whitfield take a magnifying glass to someone at the centre of South Africa’s most tumultuous period and try to understand the man behind the public image. They go back to Durban in 1949 when Gordhan was born, tracing the significant events and influences that shaped his life and prompted him to become involved in politics as a pharmacy student at the University of Durban-Westville. Ancer and Whitfield have interviewed close former activists to build a picture of his time in the underground and the role he played in the struggle including his detention and torture. It was during this time he worked closely with Zuma, the man who would, on the back of a bogus intelligence report, fire him as finance minister.

The book will examine why Gordhan has been dragged into major controversies like the rogue unit saga, the intelligence report and other smears against him. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s right-hand man has made many enemies: public protector Busisiwe Mkhwebane, Julius Malema and Ace Magashule to name a few.

Joining the Dots is an in-depth and satisfying read about a man who has been at the centre of South African public life.

Sociopath: A Memoir is at once a jaw-dropping tale of a life lived on the edge of the law, and a moving account of one woman's battle to gain a deeper understanding of people who, like her, are sociopaths.

Ever since she was a small child, Patric Gagne knew she was different. Although she felt intense love for her family and her best friend, David, these connections were never enough to make her be 'good', or to reduce her feelings of apathy and frustration. As she grew older, her behaviour escalated from petty theft through to breaking and entering, stalking, and worse . . .

As an adult, Patric realized that she was a sociopath. Although she instantly connected with the official descriptions of sociopathy, she also knew they didn't tell the full story: she had a plan for her life, had nurtured close relationships and was doing her best (most of the time) to avoid harming others.

While her darker impulses warred against her attempts to live a settled, loving life with her partner, Patric began to wonder - was there a way for sociopaths to integrate happily into society? And could she find it before her own behaviour went a step too far?

Nonkululeko Gobodo made her mark in business as the first black female Chartered Accountant in South Africa, a great and rare feat for a black woman growing up in apartheid South Africa.

If she was told at 17 years old, while pregnant, that she would be a valiant voice of her generation, she would have laughed it off in disbelief. Nonkululeko’s career has always been about embodying black excellence, and in this book, she bares her own perspective on deep-seated issues of racism, prejudice against women, discrimination, and mental brokenness; themes that continue to taunt our minds today.

The book is a culmination of her passion to see black people and women awakened to their true selves. It is a reflective celebration of self, courage and the remarkable spirit of resilience that lies within us all.

The clarity in her voice comes through so well that it feels like she’s in the room with you, narrating her life story in an unhurried conversation. Her discerning view on the ego and one’s ability to be both wise and foolish, strong and weak, is meditative and inspiring. True to the book’s title, she comes into her own through her unordinary journey of trauma, healing and self-love that has awakened her to her true purpose.

Be inspired and motivated, get your copy today.

Reflections on race, language, colonial, postcolonial and decolonial knowledge projects that explore the pitfalls and possibilities that face South African universities and a post-apartheid generation inventing the future of knowledge.

Predicaments of Knowledge explores the difficult questions South African universities face after apartheid: Is there a difference between Africanising a university and decolonising a university? Or between deracialising and decolonising curricula taught at universities across disciplines?

Through a range of reflections on race, language, colonial, postcolonial and decolonial knowledge projects this book clarifies the pitfalls and possibilities that face a post-apartheid generation inventing the future of knowledge.

Current plans to ‘decolonise’ the university after apartheid often conflate three distinct but equally important imperatives: decolonisation, deracialisation and Africanisation. These distinction between decolonisation and deracialisation is sometimes conflated in the political demands put to universities as well. By parsing out the distinction between decolonisation, deracialisation and Africanisation Suren Pillay emphasises all three as important but distinct imperatives.

Drawing on more than two and half decades of the author’s participation in these debates, the essays gathered here are to be read as ‘interventions’ in a larger living debate. They elucidate what our predicaments might be rather than foreclose debate or solutions and are dialogical in spirit even when occasionally polemical in tone. They self-consciously seek to be in conversation with prior continental African and Latin American experiences, as well as offer reflections on current South African debates.

Statistics and quantitative methods are brought to life for social science students in this tutorial course.

,P> This revised edition provides an overview of entry- and intermediate-level statistics, and the material on the accompanying website provides extensive practice. Both the text and the website are structured to make learning self-directed, thus numerous worked examples, exercises, activities and tests are included. The emphasis, throughout, is on practice.

Students are expected to engage with the material and experience multiple aspects of data and statistical analysis. Most of the tutorials include detailed examples of how to conduct analyses in Microsoft Excel, SPSS, or R.

With three bestselling books published, Khaya Dlanga is one of South Africa’s favourite authors. His ability to write candidly and authentically about himself and his world has resonated with readers from all walks of life.

In March 2020 Khaya found himself bereaved, alone and facing an indefinite lockdown as a result of COVID-19. Like most of us, he turned to social media to maintain some human connection and his followers came through and kept him going. It’s The Answers For Me is the result of Khaya’s ongoing Q&A interactions with his followers on Instagram. It’s evidence of the genuine communities that are formed on social media: intensely human, at times strange and shocking, sometimes touching and often really funny. And it’s a record of a nation going through the most bizarre (and longest) year in recent history.

Khaya’s enviable gift for storytelling makes people want to hear his stories and also to trust him with theirs. From the secrets our parents think they keep from us to the real reasons we stay in relationships, and venturing into many other everyday issues and situations, It’s the answers for me captures our collective mgowo.

It's time to fight back.

Each day, more South Africans are targeted, labelled, and hounded out of society for expressing their opinions - ordinary opinions that just a few years ago were accepted as rational common sense. Have you been "cancelled" by an online mob that won't stop harassing you until you're fired from your job? Helen Zille almost was - but she survived by fighting back. In #StayWoke: Go Broke, the bestselling author and defining South African political figure explains why the woke Left constitutes a greater threat to South Africa's future than the populist Right does.

Now more than ever, liberals must strengthen their spines and fight for their values - or be eviscerated in the Culture Wars raging across the English-speaking world. If you're looking for an incisive, indispensable survival guide through this tumultuous period of South African history, then #StayWoke: Go Broke is for you.

Sociopolitical occurrences in recent years have, if anything, brought to the fore the close relationship between developments in the labour market and progress on the socio-econo-political terrain. The ideological divides in South Africa are especially apparent in the labour market, and these compound the basic conflict between the objectives of protecting basic worker rights on the one hand, and increasing economic growth on the other. The South African labour market contains an abundance of information about labour markets in general and the South African labour market in particular. The South African labour market has a down-to-earth and practical approach. It considers the evidence and identifies some urgent discussion points about the sensitivity of employment to economic growth. Three appendix chapters deal extensively with the impact of globalisation on the labour market, how other countries have managed the challenges of globalisation, and consensus-seeking institutions such as Nedlac. Questions and study suggestions are included at the end of each chapter. The South African labour market is aimed at economics students as well as general readers wanting an overview of the South African labour market. The late Dr Frans Barker was a senior executive at the Chamber of Mines. During his career, he was also vice-president of the Economic Society of South Africa and president of the Industrial Relations Association of South Africa. He served on governing structures of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), was a commissioner for the Commission for Employment Equity and was also involved in Nedlac in various roles. Dr Barker lectured at a number of universities and was the author of several publications related to labour issues. Derek Yu is an associate professor at the Department of Economics at the University of the Western Cape. He has a decade of teaching experience in undergraduate and postgraduate Labour Economics, and has published comprehensively in this area. He is also the author of the first edition of Basic mathematics for economics students: theory and applications. Pietman Roos has a decade's experience in different civil society organisations including national government, news media and organised business. He has worked on economic policy formulation, commentary, negotiation and advocacy, and has lectured undergraduate economics and jurisprudence.

1-Recce was the sharpest, most versatile and deadliest specialist unit in the entire South African army. These men were super fit, unbelievably tough and stopped at nothing. Time and again they put their lives at risk in the execution of highly secret operations behind enemy lines.

For decades these missions have been kept secret. Now, for the first time, the Recces' most famous generals (including the legendary colonel Jan Breytenbach) reveal their involvement in many highly sensitive political operations.

Explosive revelations are made of a collapsed mission to blow up key ANC figures in the final years of the apartheid era. They tell of 1-Recce's involvement in the controversial Border War and reveal the existence of a top secret squadron in the then Rhodesian army.

After years of myths and secrecy, this book gives a new perspective on the Recces and the way they operated invisibly behind the scenes.

Seeking Sanctuary brings together poignant life stories from fourteen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in Johannesburg, South Africa. The stories, diverse in scope, chronicle each narrator’s arduous journey to South Africa, and their corresponding movement towards self-love and self-acceptance.

The narrators reveal their personal battles to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender identity, often in the face of violent persecution, and how they have carved out spaces of hope and belonging in their new home country. In these intimate testimonies, the narrators’ resilience in the midst of uncertain futures reveal the myriad ways in which LGBT Africans push back against unjust and unequal systems.

Seeking Sanctuary makes a critical intervention by showing the complex interplay between homophobia and xenophobia in South Africa, and of the state of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights in Africa. By shedding light on the fraught connections between sexuality, faith and migration, this ground-breaking project also provides a model for religious communities who are working towards justice, diversity and inclusion.

In 1973 the trade union movement was both racially and regionally divided. It virtually excluded African workers, and in many cases unions were led by cautious and paternalistic leaders, long schooled in avoiding confrontation with either the state or employers. Then widespread strikes erupted in Durban where hundreds of thousands of workers downed tools in support of wage demands. It was a militant explosion unprecedented since the apartheid government had crushed and outlawed mass demonstrations against segregation and 'whites-only' rule. And it provided the impetus for the next decade and a half of trade union organisation, which succeeded in uniting workers on a largely non-racial basis, dominated by the slogan 'one industry one union'.

Maverick Insider is an anecdotal, insider's account of the transformation during this period in the textile, clothing and leather worker sectors. It focuses on the outlooks of leadership groups in different parts of that industry and their efforts to influence the nature of the amalgamation of six unions to form the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU), one of the three largest unions of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). It traces the interaction between union leadership and both political parties and community organisations dedicated to making the country ungovernable, as well as those who were determined to stamp out such calls. It details struggles to unite workers across political divides in the same union organisation and to assert an independent working-class point of view in a period of growing African nationalism. It details the traumatic events on the road to the so-called peaceful miracle that created a rainbow nation but left 22 000 South Africans dead in the process.

And it is the story of a team of people who set out to change the world and formed an unshakeable bond in the process.

In 12 Rules for Life, acclaimed public thinker and clinical psychologist Jordan B. Peterson offered an antidote to the chaos in our lives: eternal truths applied to modern anxieties. His insights have helped millions of readers and resonated powerfully around the world.

Now in this long-awaited sequel, Peterson goes further, showing that part of life's meaning comes from reaching out into the domain beyond what we know, and adapting to an ever-transforming world. While an excess of chaos threatens us with uncertainty, an excess of order leads to a lack of curiosity and creative vitality. Beyond Order therefore calls on us to balance the two fundamental principles of reality - order and chaos ­- and reveals the profound meaning that can be found on the path that divides them.

In times of instability and suffering, Peterson reminds us that there are sources of strength on which we can all draw: insights borrowed from psychology, philosophy, and humanity's greatest myths and stories. Drawing on the hard-won truths of ancient wisdom, as well as deeply personal lessons from his own life and clinical practice, Peterson offers twelve new principles to guide readers towards a more courageous, truthful and meaningful life.

Rachel Maddow traces the fight to preserve American democracy back to World War II, when a handful of committed public servants and brave private citizens thwarted far-right plotters trying to steer our nation toward an alliance with the Nazis.

Inspired by her research for the hit podcast Ultra, Rachel Maddow charts the rise of a wild American strain of authoritarianism that has been alive on the far-right edge of our politics for the better part of a century. Before and even after our troops had begun fighting abroad in World War II, a clandestine network flooded the country with disinformation aimed at sapping the strength of the U.S. war effort and persuading Americans that our natural alliance was with the Axis, not against it. It was a sophisticated and shockingly well-funded campaign to undermine democratic institutions, promote antisemitism, and destroy citizens’ confidence in their elected leaders, with the ultimate goal of overthrowing the U.S. government and installing authoritarian rule.

That effort worked—tongue and groove—alongside an ultra-right paramilitary movement that stockpiled bombs and weapons and trained for mass murder and violent insurrection.

At the same time, a handful of extraordinary activists and journalists were tracking the scheme, exposing it even as it was unfolding. In 1941 the U.S. Department of Justice finally made a frontal attack, identifying the key plotters, finding their backers, and prosecuting dozens in federal court.

None of it went as planned.

While the scheme has been remembered in history—if at all—as the work of fringe players, in reality it involved a large number of some of the country’s most influential elected officials. Their interference in law enforcement efforts against the plot is a dark story of the rule of law bending and then breaking under the weight of political intimidation.

That failure of the legal system had consequences. The tentacles of that unslain beast have reached forward into our history for decades. But the heroic efforts of the activists, journalists, prosecutors, and regular citizens who sought to expose the insurrectionists also make for a deeply resonant, deeply relevant tale in our own disquieting times.