Balancing on the Edge of the World
Balancing on the Edge of the World

Author: Elizabeth Baines

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 120

ISBN-13:

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These are stories about power: children without it and adults vying to get or keep it. A small boy struggles with his parents' divorce, a doctor fails to understand the limits of his medical power, a wronged wife finds a uniquely powerful way to wreak revenge. Sometimes satirical, sometimes innovative and lyrical, the stories home in on those moments when power can spill into powerlessness: the split-second when a self-satisfied teenager is held at knifepoint by muggers, the trip to the woods with the 'poor kids' which teaches a small girl she's no better than them. They chart the opposite moments when people wrest back power: a daughter rebels against her violent father, a struggling writer decides to expose a con man arts worker, a little girl who wishes her lost father would come back finds she has magic powers.But it's a slippery thing, power, and these vivid, wry stories spring surprises: for nothing, in the end, is ever quite what it seems.

The Edge of the World
The Edge of the World

Author: The Editors of Outside Magazine

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-09-01

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1493031600

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Photos and stories that will stop you in your tracks Created in partnership with Outside magazine for its 40th anniversary The gripping stories behind some of Outside’s most iconic images. More than 140 of the best adventure photos ever featured in Outside With a foreword by world-renowned photographer Jimmy Chin and an introduction by Outside magazine’s editor Christopher Keyes, Edge of the World is a stunning collection of the best photography ever published by the leader in outdoor adventure photography and journalism. Covering Outside’s most compelling stories from throughout the years, it offers readers an inside and dramatic look through the lens of the world’s top adventure photographers. First published in 1977, Outside magazine’s mission is “to inspire active participation in the world outside through award-winning coverage of the sports, people, places, adventure, discoveries, health and fitness, gear and apparel, trends and events that make up an active lifestyle.”

To the Edge of the World
To the Edge of the World

Author: Christian Wolmar

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Published: 2014-08-05

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1610394534

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To the Edge of the World is an adventure in travel -- full of extraordinary personalities, more than a century of explosive political, economic, and cultural events, and almost inconceivable feats of engineering. Christian Wolmar passionately recounts the improbable origins of the Trans-Siberian railroad, the vital artery for Russian expansion that spans almost 6,000 miles and seven time zones from Moscow to Vladivostok. The world's longest train route took a decade to build -- in the face of punishing climates, rampant disease, scarcity of funds and materials, and widespread corruption. The line sprawls over a treacherous landmass that was previously populated only by disparate tribes and convicts serving out their terms in labor camps -- where men were regularly starved, tortured, or mutilated for minor offenses. Once built, it led to the establishment of new cities and transformed the region's history. Exceeding all expectations, it became, according to Wolmar, "the best thing that ever happened to Siberia." It was not all good news, however. The railroad was the cause of the 1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War, and played a vital -- and at times bloody -- role in the Russian Revolution and the subsequent Civil War. More positively, the Russians were able to resist the Nazi invasion during the Second World War as new routes enabled whole industries to be sent east. Siberia, previously a lost and distant region, became an inextricable part of Russia's cultural identity. And what began as one meandering, single-track line is now, arguably, the world's most important railroad.

At the Edge of the World
At the Edge of the World

Author: Jean Mohr

Publisher: Reaktion Books

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 9781861890481

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"This book is a ecord, in words and more than 90 black-and-white photographs, of Mohr's journeys to such places as Romania, Karachi, NManilla, Algeria, Lapland and Nicaragura. It illuminates his ongoing concern with humanitarian issues as well as his bemused observations regarding clashes between international policy and local politics and personalities, between media hype and traditional magic". -- Jacket.

Balanced on the Blade's Edge
Balanced on the Blade's Edge

Author: Lindsay Buroker

Publisher: Lindsay Buroker

Published: 2014-04-01

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13:

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Colonel Ridge Zirkander isn’t the model of military professionalism—he has a tendency to say exactly what’s on his mind, and his record has enough demerits to wallpaper the hull of an airship—but as the best fighter pilot in the Iskandian army, he’s used to a little leniency from his superiors. Until he punches the wrong diplomat in the nose and finds himself issued new orders: take command of a remote prison mine in the inhospitable Ice Blades Mountains. Ridge has never been in charge of anything larger than a flier squadron—what’s he supposed to do with a frozen fortress full of murderers and rapists? Not to mention the strange woman who shows up right before he arrives… Sardelle Terushan wakes from three hundred years in a mage stasis shelter, only to realize that she is the last of the Referatu, the sorcerers who once helped protect Iskandia from conquerors. Their subterranean mountain community was blown up in a treacherous sneak attack by soldiers who feared their power. Everyone Sardelle ever knew is dead, and the sentient soulblade she has been bonded to since her youth is buried in the core of the mountain. Further, what remains of her home has been infested by bloodthirsty miners commanded by the descendants of the very soldiers who destroyed her people. Sardelle needs help to reach her soulblade—her only link to her past and her last friend in the world. Her only hope is to pretend she’s one of the prisoners while trying to gain the commander’s trust. But lying isn’t her specialty, especially when the world has changed so much in the intervening centuries, and if Colonel Zirkander figures out who she truly is, he’ll be duty-bound to sentence her to the only acceptable punishment for sorcerers: death.

Over the Edge of the World
Over the Edge of the World

Author: Laurence Bergreen

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2009-10-13

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 0061865885

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“A first-rate historical page turner.” —New York Times Book Review The acclaimed and bestselling account of Ferdinand Magellan’s historic 60,000-mile ocean voyage. Ferdinand Magellan's daring circumnavigation of the globe in the sixteenth century was a three-year odyssey filled with sex, violence, and amazing adventure. Now in Over the Edge of the World, prize-winning biographer and journalist Laurence Bergreen entwines a variety of candid, firsthand accounts, bringing to life this groundbreaking and majestic tale of discovery that changed both the way explorers would henceforth navigate the oceans and history itself. Now updated to include a new introduction commemorating the 500th anniversary of Magellan’s voyage.

Falling Off the Edge of the World
Falling Off the Edge of the World

Author: Shelly Anderson

Publisher: Lulu.com

Published: 2013-09-23

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1304471926

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What would tempt a young woman to run off to a country she knew almost nothing about? I was that young woman. Fleeing a bitter divorce and my safe, but mundane, life I accepted a job in Saudi Arabia, a country that by all reports was the most austere on earth. I ran headlong into an unexpected adventure that would change my life forever. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - mysterious, beautiful and dangerous. A land of stunning desert landscapes where modern ways co-exist uneasily with ancient traditions. An enigma of a place where the state executioner is revered, where beautiful women shroud themselves in black, and ferocious desert sandstorms turn high noon into darkest night. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with the Middle East and its people, their proud history, and their gracious hospitality. This is my story.

Restraining Great Powers
Restraining Great Powers

Author: T. V. Paul

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-01-01

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0300228481

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At the end of the Cold War, the United States emerged as the world's most powerful state, and then used that power to initiate wars against smaller countries in the Middle East and South Asia. According to balance-of-power theory--the bedrock of realism in international relations--other states should have joined together militarily to counterbalance the United States' rising power. Yet they did not. Nor have they united to oppose Chinese aggression in the South China Sea or Russian offensives along its western border. This does not mean balance-of-power politics is dead, argues renowned international relations scholar T. V. Paul; instead it has taken a different form. Rather than employ familiar strategies such as active military alliances and arms buildups, leading powers have engaged in "soft balancing," which seeks to restrain threatening powers through the use of international institutions, informal alignments, and economic sanctions. Paul places the evolution of balancing behavior in historical perspective, from the post-Napoleonic era to today's globalized world. This book offers an illuminating examination of how subtler forms of balance-of-power politics can help states achieve their goals against aggressive powers without wars or arms races.