Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios for Bloomsbury" in Political Science

We live in a time of unprecedented upheaval, when technology and so-called progress have made us richer but more uncertain than ever before. We have questions about the future, society, work, happiness, family and money, and yet no political party of the right or left is providing us with answers. So, too, does the time seem to be coming to an end when we looked to economists to help us define the qualities necessary to create a successful society. We need a new movement.

John F. Kennedy died half a century ago - yet because of his extraordinary promise and untimely death, his star still resonates strongly. On the anniversary of his assassination, celebrated political scientist and analyst Larry J. Sabato - himself a teenager in the early 1960s and inspired by JFK and his presidency - explores the fascinating and powerful influence he has had over five decades on the media, the general public, and especially on each of his nine presidential successors.

'All roads used to lead to Rome. Today, they lead to Beijing.' When The Silk Roads was published in 2015, it became an instant classic. A major reassessment of world history, it compelled us to look at the past from a different perspective. The New Silk Roads brings this story up to date, addressing the present and future of a world that is changing dramatically. Following the Silk Roads eastwards, from Europe through to China, by way of Russia and the Middle East, The New Silk Roads provides a timely reminder that we live in a world that is profoundly interconnected.

In 1988, James Orbinski, then a medical student in his 20s, embarked on a year-long research trip to Rwanda, a trip that would change who he would be as a doctor and as a man. Investigating the conditions of pediatric AIDS in Rwanda, James confronted widespread pain and suffering, much of it preventable, much of it occasioned by political and economic corruption. Fuelled by the injustice of what he had seen in Rwanda, Orbinski helped establish the Canadian chapter of Mdecins Sans Frontires (Doctors Without Borders/MSF).

It's one of the most revered movies of Hollywood's golden era. Starring screen legend Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in her first significant film role, High Noon was shot on a lean budget over just 32 days but achieved instant box-office and critical success. It won four Academy Awards in 1953, including a best actor win for Cooper. And it became a cultural touchstone, often cited by politicians as a favourite film, celebrating moral fortitude.

As Ferguson, Missouri, erupted in August 2014 and media commentators across the ideological spectrum referred to the angry response of African Americans as 'Black rage', historian Carol Anderson wrote a remarkable op-ed in the Washington Post showing that this was, instead, 'white rage at work. With so much attention on the flames,' she wrote, 'everyone had ignored the kindling.'

We Are the Change We Seek is a collection of Barack Obama's 26 greatest addresses: beginning with his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq War and closing with his final speech before the United Nations in September 2016. As president, Obama's words had the power to move the country, and often the world, as few presidents before him.

Born into the Christian minority in Lebanon and since settled in France, Amin Maalouf claims a unique position in global conversation. His first book, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, was a critical and commercial success and remains in print after 20 years. In Disordered World, Maalouf combines his command of history with a critical perspective on contemporary culture, East and West - joining them with a fierce moral clarity and a propulsive style.

A generation of Americans came of age boycotting grapes, swept up in a movement that vanquished California's most powerful industry and accomplished the unthinkable: dignity and contracts for farm workers. Four decades later, Cesar Chavez's likeness graces postage stamps, and dozens of schools and streets have been renamed in his honor. But the real story of Chavez's farm workers' movement - both its historic triumphs and its tragic disintegration - has remained buried beneath the hagiography.

The American invasion of Iraq has been a success - for the Kurds. Kurdistan is an invisible nation, and the Kurds the largest ethnic group on Earth without a homeland, comprising some 25 million moderate Sunni Muslims living in the area around the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. Through a history dating back to biblical times, they have endured persecution and betrayal, surviving only through stubborn compromise with greater powers. They have always desired their own state, and now, accidentally, the United States may have helped them take a huge step toward that goal.

In 1953, Winston Churchill received the Nobel Prize - for Literature. In fact, Churchill was a professional writer before he was a politician, and published a stream of books and articles over the course of two intertwined careers. Now historian Peter Clarke traces the writing of the magisterial work that occupied Churchill for a quarter century, his four-volume History of the English-Speaking Peoples. As an author, Churchill faced woes familiar to many others - chronically short of funds, late on deadlines, scrambling to sell new projects....

For acclaimed historian William Jelani Cobb, the historic election of Barack Obama to the presidency is not the most remarkable development of the 2008 election; even more so is the fact that Obama won some 90 percent of the black vote in the primaries across America despite the fact that the established black leadership since the civil rights era-men like Jesse Jackson, John Lewis, Andrew Young, who paved the way for his candidacy-all openly supported Hillary Clinton.

In The War We Never Fought, Hitchens uncovers the secret history of the government's true attitude and the increasing recruitment of the police and courts to covert decriminalisation initiatives and contrasts it with the rhetoric. Whatever and whoever is to blame for the undoubted mess of Britain's drug policy, it is not prohibition or a war on drugs, for neither exists.

On the fortieth anniversary of revolution and rebellion in Chile, a searching history of the rise and fall of the world’s first and only democratically elected Marxist president. On September 11, 1973, President Salvador Allende of Chile was deposed in a violent coup led by General Augusto Pinochet. The coup had been in the works for months, even years. Shortly after giving a farewell speech to his people, Allende died of gunshot wounds - whether inflicted by his own hand or an assassin’s remains uncertain.

On 6 February 1918, after campaigning for over 50 years, British women were finally granted the vote. In November 1919, the first woman MP, Lady Nancy Astor, was elected to the House of Commons. History was made. A hundred years on, it is time to reflect on the daring and painful struggle women undertook to break into a political system that excluded them.

American democracy has become coin operated. Special interest groups increasingly control every level of government. The necessity of raising huge sums of campaign cash has completely changed the character of politics and policymaking, determining what elected representatives stand for and how they spend their time.

Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and James Monroe were in the vanguard of revolutionary ideas in the 18th century. As founding fathers, they risked their lives for American independence, but they also wanted more. Each wished for profound changes in the political and social fabric of pre-1776 America and hoped that the American Revolution would spark republican and egalitarian revolutions throughout Europe, sweeping away the old aristocratic order. Ultimately, each rejoiced at the opportunity to be a part of the French Revolution, a cause that became increasingly untenable as idealism gave way to the bloody terror.

From the American Revolution to the end of World War II, the United States spent 19 years at war against other nations. But since1950, the total is 22 years and counting. On four occasions, U.S. presidents elected as "peace candidates" have gone on to lead the nation into ferocious armed conflicts. Repeatedly, wars deemed necessary when they began have been seen in retrospect as avoidable, and ill-advised. Americans profess to be a peace-loving people and one wary of "foreign entanglements". Yet we have been drawn into wars in distant lands from Vietnam to Afghanistan.

Churchill's Legacy describes how Churchill wielded his influence in postwar politics to enable the restoration of Europe through two key speeches in 1946. Having first helped bring victory to the Allies in 1945, Churchill went on to preserve the freedom of the world by gaining the support of the United States in the restoration of Europe. In Fulton, Missouri, Churchill alerted America to the reality of 'Uncle Joe' - a tyrant determined to dominate Europe at any cost.

The history of Jewish persecution is as old as the written word, though the epithet anti-Semitism was conceived only in the late 19th century, as it reached the beginning of its most horrifying chapter. Throughout Christian history the hatred and prejudice toward the Jewish people have often been blamed on the betrayal and crucifixion of Christ, but ethnic Jewish oppression began long before. It is beyond dispute that antisemitism in our societies is on the increase.