Showing results for "State of the World" in Freedom & Security

In today’s chaotic world, where the multiplication of information sources creates competing narratives, credibility is the key to winning the war of ideas. This is the reason why governments and corporations resort to astroturfing - creation of ostensibly grassroots movements set up to advance political agendas and commercial campaigns. The democratization of information and polarization of politics offer a perfect storm.

A top cybersecurity journalist tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb. “Immensely enjoyable...

Profiled on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, Iranian-born scholar Vali Nasr has become one of America's leading commentators on current events in the Middle East, admired and welcomed by both media and government for his "concise and coherent" analysis (Wall Street Journal). In this "smart, clear and timely" book (Washington Post), Nasr brilliantly dissects the political and theological antagonisms within Islam. He provides a unique and objective understanding of the 1,400-year bitter struggle between Shias and Sunnis, and sheds crucial light on its modern-day consequences—from the nuclear posturing of Iran's President Ahmadinejad to the recent U.S.-enabled shift toward Shia power in Iraq and Hezbollah's continued dominance in Lebanon.

Through vivid histories drawn from virtually every continent, A World Divided describes how, since the 18th century, nationalists have struggled to establish their own states that grant human rights to some people. At the same time, they have excluded others through forced assimilation, ethnic cleansing, or even genocide. From Greek rebels, American settlers, and Brazilian abolitionists in the 19th century to anticolonial Africans and Zionists in the 20th, nationalists have confronted a crucial question: Who has the "right to have rights?"

The untold story of the Christian missionaries who played a crucial role in the allied victory in World War II What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought "Wild" Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Office of Strategic Services. They...

In 2007, three Muslim university students left the Canadian Prairies, seemingly without a trace. In the ensuing months, their disappearance raised fears that the men had become "radicalized," posing a grave threat to national security. From presidential briefings and targeted drone assassinations to a politically charged trial, the men's story sheds new light not only on the figure of the "radical," but also on the "moderate" Muslim, represented by a community forever changed by the men's departure.

April 13, 2006. A Jerusalem Post headline reads: "Jericho man murdered over home sale." The 42 year-old father of eight was kidnapped, shot seven times, thrown into his car, and set on fire, because he had sold his Jerusalem apartment to Jews. Radical Islam has long desired to seize Jerusalem and make it off limits to Christian and Jewish believers. In this revealing book, Dore Gold, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, reminds us that the war on terror is also a war on faith.

Arguing that North Korea is little more than a carefully constructed Chinese puppet state, the author looks into the heart of this "rogue nation" and finds the Chinese behind much of the terrorism and nuclear weapons manufacturing on the Korean peninsula.

In Nazis in the New World, Aaron Gillette presents vivid narratives and personal accounts to reveal the unknown history of Nazi German exchange students sent to America in the 1930s. After receiving the Gestapo's stamp of approval, they were instructed to use their charm and charisma to promote the Third Reich. Some also served Hitler as covert operatives against the United States.

America has a long history of diplomacy–ranging from Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson to Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan, and James Baker–now is your chance to see the impact these Americans have had on the world. Recounting the actors and events of U.S. foreign...

This absorbing history by a brilliant scholar and writer deepens our understanding of how censorship works. With his uncanny ability to spark life in the past, Robert Darnton re-creates three historical worlds in which censorship shaped literary expression in distinctive ways. In 18th-century France, censors, authors, and booksellers collaborated in making literature by navigating the intricate culture of royal privilege.

Published in 1791, Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man defended the French Revolution’s values of freedom, equality, and brotherhood. He argued that a government based on justice ought to support mankind’s civil rights relating to security and protection, as well as the natural rights to life, liberty, and freedom of conscience. He also proposed plans for universal education, pensions, poverty relief, and social welfare in this classic work that was widely read across the West.

Rodrigo Duterte was elected President of the Philippines in 2016. In his first 18 months in office, 12,000 people were murdered on the streets, gunned down by police officers and vigilante citizens - all with his encouragement. Duterte is a serial womanizer and a self-confessed killer, who has called both Barack Obama and Pope Francis "sons of whores." He is on record as saying he does not "give a shit" about human rights. Yet he is beloved of the 16.6 million Filipinos who voted for him, seen as vulgar but honest, a breath of fresh air, and an iconoclastic, anti-imperialist rebel.

The Plot to Destroy Trump exposes the deep state conspiracy to discredit and even depose the legitimately elected President Donald J. Trump with the fabricated Russian dossier, including: how the unsubstantiated accusations of collusion began with former MI6 agent Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS, and the Democratic National Convention on behalf of Hillary Clinton; the opportunistic role played by Russia’s FSB and former KGB agents, according to Putin’s strategy to create chaos in the West; and much more.

While Vladimir Putin has been president and prime minister of Russia, the Kremlin has deployed the security services to intimidate the political opposition, reassert the power of the state, and carry out assassinations overseas. At the same time, its agents and spies were put beyond public accountability and blessed with the prestige, benefits, and legitimacy lost since the Soviet collapse.

Since 1945, the US has justified numerous wars, interventions, and military build-ups based on the pretext of the Russian Red Menace, even after the Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991 and Russia stopped being Red. In fact, the two biggest post-war American conflicts, the Korean and Vietnam wars, were not, as has been frequently claimed, about stopping Soviet aggression or even influence. And now the specter of a Russian Menace has been raised again in the wake of Donald Trump's victory.

An elite Navy SEAL Team 6 operator trained to kill the United States’ most dangerous enemies takes readers inside the unadulterated, morally complicated and riveting post-military adventures of a lethal American mercenary. In American Mercenary, Daniel Corbett takes readers on a wild ride...