Atho: a world struggling under the iron fist of a corrupt government. Sirotištes take children for both warranted and unwarranted reasons, wars rage on with no end in sight. Magicians and humans on both sides fight for survival. One hopes to overthrow while the other desires complete domination.In this, the first book in the series, Loslin and West Kelser lose their parents and are sent to live in a sirotište. Reunited after seven grueling years, they are thrown yet again into the midst of the chaos. Their pasts and their parents' legacy force them into the wars. Loslin, who has the Gift and captains a ship, attacks cruel and abusive slave owners. He and his brother, West, are destined for an inevitable fate. Loslin is pursued by a certain admiral of the government, who holds a scroll that is mysteriously linked to the Kelsers. They have to face each other's pasts to tie into the future… together, or not at all.
This fascinating book uncovers the hidden stories behind Pakistan’s fixation with blasphemy–tales of revenge, political scheming and sovereign betrayal. Hussain’s account opens in nineteenth-century colonial Punjab and traces blasphemy killings to the present, linking their emergence to polemic encounters between Hindu and Muslim revivalist sects, namely the Arya Samaj and the Ahmadiyya. It offers, for the first time, the arresting backstories to the assassinations of Pandit Lekh Ram, a leading Hindu nationalist; Swami Shraddhanand, an early progenitor of Hindu nationalism and the principal advocate for converting Muslims; and Rajpal, the Hindu publisher of a sensationalist book on the Prophet Muhammad. Revenge, Politics and Blasphemy in Pakistan then maps the curious afterlives of these killings, illuminating the most critical moments in Pakistan’s history: 1953, when outraged protestors smashed stores owned by religious minorities, triggering the country’s first state of emergency; 1974, when Islamist parties pressured Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto to put blasphemy on the constitutional agenda; 1984, when Zia-ul-Haq transformed Pakistan according to his Islamist vision, which included more severe punishments for blasphemy; and the twenty-first century, when digital media has dramatically increased the visibility of blasphemy killings, prompting political parties to demonstrate their commitment to the cause.
Patrolling the Border focuses on a late eighteenth-century conflict between Creek Indians and Georgians. The conflict was marked by years of seemingly random theft and violence culminating in open war along the Oconee River, the contested border between the two peoples. Joshua S. Haynes argues that the period should be viewed as the struggle of nonstate indigenous people to develop an effective method of resisting colonization. Using database and digital mapping applications, Haynes identifies one such method of resistance: a pattern of Creek raiding best described as politically motivated border patrols. Drawing on precontact ideas and two hundred years of political innovation, border patrols harnessed a popular spirit of unity to defend Creek country. These actions, however, sharpened divisions over political leadership both in Creek country and in the infant United States. In both polities, people struggled over whether local or central governments would call the shots. As a state-like institution, border patrols are the key to understanding seemingly random violence and its long-term political implications, which would include, ultimately, Indian removal.
The CIA’s 2013 release of its book The Central Intelligence Agency and Overhead Reconnaissance 1954–1974 is a fascinating and important historical document. It contains a significant amount of newly declassified material with respect to the U-2 and Oxcart programs, including names of pilots; codenames and cryptonyms; locations, funding, and cover arrangements; electronic countermeasures equipment; cooperation with foreign governments; and overflights of the Soviet Union, Cuba, China, and other countries. Originally published with a Secret/No Foreign Dissemination classification, this detailed study describes not only the program’s technological and bureaucratic aspects, but also its political and international context, including the difficult choices faced by President Eisenhower in authorizing overflights of the Soviet Union and the controversy surrounding the shoot down there of U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1960. The authors discuss the origins of the U-2, its top-secret testing, its specially designed high-altitude cameras and complex life-support systems, and even the possible use of poison capsules by its pilots, if captured. They call attention to the crucial importance of the U-2 in the gathering of strategic and tactical intelligence, as well as the controversies that the program unleashed. Finally, they discuss the CIA’s development of a successor to the U-2, the Oxcart, which became the world’s most technologically advanced aircraft. For the first time, the more complete 2013 release of this historical text is available in a professionally typeset format, supplemented with higher quality photographs that will bring alive these incredible aircraft and the story of their development and use by the CIA. This edition also includes a new preface by author Gregory W. Pedlow and a foreword by Chris Pocock. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in history--books about World War II, the Third Reich, Hitler and his henchmen, the JFK assassination, conspiracies, the American Civil War, the American Revolution, gladiators, Vikings, ancient Rome, medieval times, the old West, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
One man was hers for a season. The other, for a lifetime. Many moons have passed since the spirits threw Pretty Wolf together with a scrawny brave and left them to scratch out an existence in a deserted, war-torn village. Though he became dear to her, duty to the People lured her away. Back now with her fugitive clan in faraway Spanish Territory, she lives at the trade post with her longtime betrothed, the Englishman called Iron Wood. When their war party returns with captive enemy warriors, Pretty Wolf is ill-prepared for one of them to be the boy she abandoned in the north. Neither is she prepared for that boy to have donned a generous spread of muscles. Or for him to have no trouble calling her master. Night is falling on the Defiance, and it promises to be burial-black. But as Creator Path Maker promised, Strong Bear has found his Wolf. All that’s left is to pray that when the bluecoats invade and rip at the last shreds of her beautiful spirit, there will be something left of her for Strong Bear to love. Scroll up and click BUY NOW to experience the romance of Creek country!
On political conditions in Punjab, India, with particular reference to the role of Santa Jaranaila Siṅgha, 1947-1984, who died in Golden Temple (Amritsar) Assault.
The history of Sikhs in Britain provides important clues into the evolution of Britain as a multicultural society and the challenges it faces today. The authors examine the complex Anglo-Sikh relationship that led to the initial Sikh settlement and the processes of community-building around Sikh institutions such as gurdwaras. They explore the nature of British Sikh society as reflected in the performance of Sikhs in the labor markets, the changing characteristics of the Sikh family and issues of cultural transmission to the young. They provide an original and insightful account of a community transformed from the site of radical immigrant class politics to a leader of the Sikh diaspora in its search for a separate Sikh state.
