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Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state.

Two renowned investment advisors and authors of the best seller The Great Reckoning bring to light both currents of disaster and the potential for prosperity and renewal in the face of radical changes in human history as we move into the next century. The Sovereign Individual details strategies necessary for adapting financially to the next phase of Western civilization.

In the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election, news spread about Project 2025, a nearly 1,000-page document published by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The debates—and anxiety—surrounding this initiative have only increased as authors of the Project assume positions of power in the second Trump administration. So, what is Project 2025, exactly? Who wrote it, what does it actually say, and what does it mean for everyday people around the world, across the political spectrum, in the years to come?

China and America are world powers without serious rivals. They eye each other warily across the Pacific; they communicate poorly; there seems little natural empathy. A massive geopolitical contest has begun. America prizes freedom; China values freedom from chaos. America values strategic decisiveness; China values patience.America is becoming society of lasting inequality; China a meritocracy. America has abandoned multilateralism; China welcomes it.

In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising - an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged....

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.

In 1967, not long after the Six-Day War, three young Arab men ventured into the town of Ramle, in what is now Jewish Israel. They were cousins, on a pilgrimage to see their childhood homes; their families had been driven out of Palestine nearly 20 years earlier. One cousin had a door slammed in his face, and another found his old house had been converted into a school. But the third, Bashir Al-Khairi, was met at the door by a young woman called Dalia, who invited them in.

From the author of the New York Times best-selling and award-winning Not on Our Watch, John Prendergast co-writes a compelling book with Fidel Bafilemba—with stunning photographs by Ryan Gosling—revealing the way in which the people and resources of the Democratic Republic of Congo have been used throughout the last five centuries to build, develop, advance, and safeguard the United States and Europe. The book highlights the devastating price Congo has paid for that support.

Millions of Baby Boomers got beach houses, free education, jobs for life and a franking credit-fed retirement. But Millennials have been handed a housing crisis, crippling student debt, the gig economy, a cooked planet, a truly broken political system and now wars, inflation and a global pandemic, as a treat. This fully sucks. But never fear–this book is going to fix everything. Through the power of jokes, history, interviews and sass, so-called comedian Tom Ballard unpicks how his generation got here, and explains why we should probably do a revolution.

Discover the prodigious global influence of il bel paese in this star-studded retelling of Italy's past-from a foremost author of historic Italy. The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced book.

The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power and geopolitics that led to America's disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America's fundamental miscalculations during its ruinous, decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein. Beginning with Saddam's rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons programme, Steve Coll traces Saddam's motives through understanding his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader.

In the years that John Howard served in the national parliament he came to understand the special character of Australia; to appreciate its strengths and weaknesses; and most importantly to respect the sense of balance in the formulation of public policy that has long defined us as a nation and made Australia an attractive destination for people from across the world.

The definitive insider narrative and the most fully characterised account yet of the chaos, scandal and destruction of Trump's first term, from two Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post journalists. Drawing on nearly three years of reporting, hundreds of hours of interviews and more than 200 sources, including some of the most senior members of the administration, friends and firsthand witnesses who have never spoken before, Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig take us inside some of the most controversial moments of Trump's presidency.

The Travels of Marco Polo is the classic account of Marco Polo's journey to China from Venice, and his discoveries as an emissary to the great Kublai Khan. Polo explores everywhere from Baghdad, Armenia and Russia to the Caspian Sea, the Gobi Desert and the small fishing villages of China, describing the geography, architecture and customs of these exotic places.

In Second Class, working-class Americans of all races, political orientations, and occupations share their stories—cleaning ladies, health care aides, cops, truck drivers, fast food workers, electricians, and more. In their own words, these working-class Americans explain the struggles and triumphs of their increasingly precarious lives—as well as what policies they think would improve them.

The epic story of how America turned the world economy into a weapon, upending decades of globalization to take on a new authoritarian axis—Russia, China, and Iran.

Africa Is Not a Country is a kaleidoscopic portrait of modern Africa that pushes back against harmful stereotypes to tell a more comprehensive story. You already know these stereotypes. So often Africa is depicted simplistically as an arid red landscape of famines and safaris, uniquely plagued by poverty and strife. In this funny and insightful book, Dipo Faloyin offers a much-needed corrective, creating a fresh and multifaceted view of this vast continent.

Fantasy is the USA’s primary product. From the Pilgrim fathers onward, America has been a place where renegades and freaks came in search of freedom to create their own realities with little objectively regulated truth standing in their way. The freedom to invent and believe whatever the hell you like is, in some ways, an unwritten constitutional right. But this do-your-own-thing freedom also is the driving credo of America's current transformation, where the difference between opinion and fact is rapidly crumbling.

Up Close with Lee Kuan Yew gathers some of the vivid memories of 37 people who have worked or interacted closely with Lee Kuan Yew in some way or other, from when he was at Raffles College in 1941 right up to his demise in 2015. Among these are his 13 Principal Private Secretaries and Special Assistants who lived and breathed Mr Lee for a few years each, and Mdm Yeong Yoon Ying, his Press Secretary of over 20 years.

Allies at War is a fast-paced, narrative history, based on material drawn from over a hundred archives. Using vivid, first-hand accounts and unpublished diaries, we enter the rooms where the critical decisions were made while going beyond the confines of the Grand Alliance to examine, among other themes, the doomed Anglo-French alliance, fractious relations with General de Gaulle and the Free French, and interactions with Poland, Greece and Nationalist China.