All in all Steve Fraser had enjoyed his three-year stint in the former Dutch Southeast Asian colony of Sunda, and he’d been well compensated. But now he was looking forward to a last weekend in the capital before heading home. But Sunda was newly independent, and not entirely stable. An opposition faction with fundamentalist Islamic leanings was set on overthrowing the provisional government. And instead of enjoying a sybaritic weekend with the Eurasian beauty Rosalie, Fraser finds himself trapped with her by a fanatical group who’ve taken over the country’s radio station and made their headquarters in his friend Jebb’s apartment. As the government launches a counterattack, the couple’s survival depends on their ability to dodge bullets and the shifting loyalties of the coup’s lieutenants.
Mahmoud Darwish (1942–2008), recipient of France’s Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres medal, the Lotus Prize, and the Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom, is widely considered Palestine’s most eminent poet. State of Siege was written while the poet himself was under siege in Ramallah during the Israeli invasion of 2002. An eloquent and impassioned response to political extremity, the collection was published to great acclaim in the Arab world. Munir Akash’s translation, including an introduction exploring the rich mythology of these poems, presents the first book-length, bilingual edition of State of Siege to an English audience.
Recipient of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize in 1989, Janet Frame has long been admired for her startlingly original prose and formidable imagination. A native of New Zealand, she is the author of eleven novels, four collections of stories, a volume of poetry, a children's book, and her heartfelt and courageous autobiography -- all published by George Braziller. This fall, we celebrate our thirty-ninth year of publishing Frame's extraordinary writing.
Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think? Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position—a top-down security perspective, that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes. Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics—the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties—and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula is followed all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes about terrorism and the rest of the world. In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation—one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education—can change course.
When the German High Command encircled Leningrad it was a deliberate policy to eradicate the city’s civilian population by starving them to death. As winter set in and food supplies dwindled, starvation and panic set in. A specialist in battle psychology and the vital role of morale in desperate circumstances, Michael Jones tells the human story of Leningrad. Drawing on newly available eyewitness accounts and diaries, he shows Leningrad in its every dimension including taboo truths, long-suppressed by the Soviets, such as looting, criminal gangs and cannibalism. But, for many ordinary citizens, Leningrad marked the triumph of the human spirit. They drew deeply on their inner resources to inspire, comfort and help one another. At the height of the siege an extraordinary live performance of Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony profoundly strengthened the city's will to resist. When German troops heard it in their trenches one remarked: ‘We began to understand we would never take Leningrad. Yet, Leningrad’s self-defence came at a huge price. When the 900-day siege ended in 1944 almost a million people had died and those who survived would be permanently marked by what they had endured, as this superbly insightful and moving history shows.
In April 2008, state police and child protection authorities raided Yearning for Zion Ranch near Eldorado, Texas, a community of 800 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a polygamist branch of the Mormons. State officials claimed that the raid, which was triggered by anonymous phone calls from an underage girl to a domestic violence hotline, was based on evidence of widespread child sexual abuse. In a high-risk paramilitary operation, 439 children were removed from the custody of their parents and held until the Third Court of Appeals found that the state had overreached. Not only did the state fail to corroborate the authenticity of the hoax calls, but evidence reveals that Texas officials had targeted the FLDS from the outset, planning and preparing for a confrontation. Saints under Siege provides a thorough, theoretically grounded critical examination of the Texas state raid on the FLDS while situating this event in a broader sociological context. The volume considers the raid as an exemplar case of a larger pattern of state actions against minority religions, offering comparative analyses to other government raids both historically and across cultures. In its look beyond the Texas raid, it provides compelling evidence of social intolerance and state repression of unpopular minority faiths in general, and the FLDS in particular.
Under Siege is Rashid Khalidi's firsthand account of the 1982 Lebanon War and the complex negotiations for the evacuation of the P.L.O. from Beirut. Utilizing unconventional sources and interviews with key officials and diplomats, Khalidi paints a detailed portrait of the siege and ensuing massacres, providing insight into the military pressure experienced by the P.L.O., the war's impact on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, and diplomatic efforts by the United States. A new preface by Khalidi considers developments across the Middle East in the thirty years since the conflict. The preface also cites recently declassified Israeli documents to offer surprising new revelations about the roles and responsibilities of both Israeli leaders and American diplomats in the tragic coda to the war, the Sabra and Shatila massacres.
In the harrowing days after September 11, 2001, the President of the United States reached out to one man to help guide the nation in its quest to shore up domestic security. In this candid and compelling memoir, Tom Ridge describes the whirlwind series of events that took him from the state capital of Pennsylvania, into the fray of Washington, D.C., and onto the world stage as a new leader in the fight against international terrorism. A Washington outsider, Ridge went above and beyond in his new post, identifying the need to integrate response teams on a wide-reaching scale and leading the nation's ambitious initiative of establishing a new Cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. The author recounts how the new department's unsung heroes, brought together under great duress, succeeded against difficult odds and navigated the politics of terrorism. Perhaps most importantly, Ridge offers a prescriptive look to the future with provocative ideas such as a national ID card and the use of biometrics to track not just who enters the United States but also how long they are here. Tom Ridge simply tells it like it is, offering a refreshingly honest assessment of the state of homeland security today—and what it needs to be tomorrow.
Costa-Gavras is a seminal figure in French and international cinema. A master of the political thriller, he explores historical events through individual human stories, thereby involving his audience in past and contemporary traumas, from the horrors of the Holocaust through mid-century international state terrorism and totalitarianism to the current global financial crisis. With a career spanning half a century, he remains one of cinema’s most intriguing and enduring storytellers, theorists and political commentators. This collection of original essays charts and re-examines Costa-Gavras’s career from Un homme de trop (1967) to Le capital (2012). Readable and carefully researched, it will appeal to students and scholars of film, as well as fans of the director’s work.
