"A decade and a half ago, lush forests with evergreen fruitbearing rambutan trees surrounded the home of Leni, a 43-year-old Iban Dayak woman and mother of two, in Jagoi Babang district of West Kalimantan province--an area her Indigenous community has inhabited for centuries. Today, they have little land to farm and no forest in which to forage after the land was cleared to make way for an oil palm plantation run by an Indonesian company."--Publisher website, viewed October 15, 2019.
Finalist, Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism In the tradition of Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation, a groundbreaking global investigation into the industry ravaging the environment and global health—from the James Beard Award–winning journalist Over the past few decades, palm oil has seeped into every corner of our lives. Worldwide, palm oil production has nearly doubled in just the last decade: oil-palm plantations now cover an area nearly the size of New Zealand, and some form of the commodity lurks in half the products on U.S. grocery shelves. But the palm oil revolution has been built on stolen land and slave labor; it’s swept away cultures and so devastated the landscapes of Southeast Asia that iconic animals now teeter on the brink of extinction. Fires lit to clear the way for plantations spew carbon emissions to rival those of industrialized nations. James Beard Award–winning journalist Jocelyn C. Zuckerman spent years traveling the globe, from Liberia to Indonesia, India to Brazil, reporting on the human and environmental impacts of this poorly understood plant. The result is Planet Palm, a riveting account blending history, science, politics, and food as seen through the people whose lives have been upended by this hidden ingredient. This groundbreaking work of first-rate journalism compels us to examine the connections between the choices we make at the grocery store and a planet under siege.
In Losing Everything, his first book of nonfiction, acclaimed novelist David Lozell Martin tells his wildest, most outlandish story yet—his own. One evening in the mountainous forest of his isolated West Virginia farmhouse, Martin became disoriented when searching for a horse who had wandered off the property. Wading through the dark and guiding his horse with a belt around its neck, Martin felt as though every step was taking him deeper into the mountains. Instead, he unknowingly spent the night walking in a wide circle that brought him back to where he started. This quickly became a metaphor for Martin's life. "The more lost I get, the closer to home I come." After growing up with a violent father who nearly killed Martin's clinically insane mother, Martin pursued a writer's life with a vengeance, becoming vulnerable to struggles with alcohol, financial ruin, and legal feuds. Then, after a betrayal by his soul mate, Martin's sanity was in as much jeopardy as his mother's had ever been -- a state of mind that in his case led to gunfire, divorce, and at least one trip to the emergency room. But Losing Everything is less about getting lost and more about finding your way home again. In his pursuit of stability, Martin uncovered lessons that might help others who have encountered loss: take pleasure in something as small as an ampersand, keep a list of people you know who have died, meet your own death like a warrior, and be glad you don't own a monkey. Deeply personal yet surprisingly universal, Martin's story is for anyone who has wandered astray. If not a road map, his journey is a guide, providing hard-earned wisdom to illuminate the path home.
We think vulnerability still matters when considering how people are put at risk from hazards and this book shows why in a series of thematic chapters and case studies written by eminent disaster studies scholars that deal with the politics of disaster risk creation: precarity, conflict, and climate change. The chapters highlight different aspects of vulnerability and disaster risk creation, placing the stress rightly on what causes disasters and explaining the politics of how they are created through a combination of human interference with natural processes, the social production of vulnerability, and the neglect of response capacities. Importantly, too, the book provides a platform for many of those most prominently involved in launching disaster studies as a social discipline to reflect on developments over the past 50 years and to comment on current trends. The interdisciplinary and historical perspective that this book provides will appeal to scholars and practitioners at both the national and international level seeking to study, develop, and support effective social protection strategies to prevent or mitigate the effects of hazards on vulnerable populations. It will also prove an invaluable reference work for students and all those interested in the future safety of the world we live in.
To A Brighter Future is the story of one family's dream and prayer to make a better life for their children. It tells of the growing-up years in a relatively affluent Germany, which quickly changed during the great inflation of the early twenties, then fell into ruin after World War ll This book chronicles the immigration of two young people to Canada in 1928 and follows their struggles to create a "brighter future" for their children in a new homeland. For the young man who came first, there was job searching, jumping the freights, and finding the right piece of land. Together, they experienced the trials and adventures of homesteading in the Peace River Country of northern Alberta. There are vivid personal descriptions of education in a one-room country school; the poverty and hardships of the depression years, but also the rich social life and community spirit of that difficult era. Also portrayed is the fear and anxiety when illness, accident and tragedy struck an isolated wilderness home. The far-reaching effects of World War ll are portrayed in a very personal manner by way of a journal written by a German-Canadian civillian prisoner of war, while interned in Kananaskis, Petawawa and Fredricton. The story includes interesting characters, adventure, romance and tragedy, all portrayed in a candid, thoughtful style. The story is greatly enhanced by authentic photographs of the settling years in Western Canada. Also included are numerous excerpts from journals and letters written "at the homestead table," to family in the old homeland, creating a truly authentic story. To a Brighter Future is much more than a story of one family. It's a powerful legacy for every community that felt "the settling pains" of a new homeland.
This book, Peter Deunov, as Remembered by Milka Periklieva - a Disciple, presents a selection of Milka's reminiscences in order to give a personal impression of the Master. The author, Milka Periklieva (1908-1978), was born in Bulgaria in the Black Sea coastal town of Varna. When she was fourteen years old, Milka became interested in the teaching of the Master, Peter Deunov (1864-1944), who had the spiritual name of Beinsa Douno. A kindergarten teacher by profession, Milka also wrote educational stories and plays for children according to the teaching and methods of the Master, and with his personal guidance. At the Master's request, in 1937, she recorded the movements of his spiritual dance, the Paneurhythmy, which became the basis of a book that was published the following year.
Continue Julianne MacLean’s USA Today bestselling Highlander Series in this historical romance boxed set. This collection includes Books 4 & 5, plus a bonus short story to whet your appetite for romance and adventure in the Scottish Highlands. The boxed set includes three titles at a discounted price: THE REBEL - The Highlander Series Short Story prequel He is Alexander MacLean, a fearsome Highland warrior fighting for his true Scottish King. She is Elizabeth Curtis, a beautiful Englishwoman who wears the scarlet uniform of an English soldier and wields a sword like a seasoned fighter on the battlefield. Enemies meet and passions collide...in The Rebel Note: The Rebel is a short story prequel to the Highlander series, approximately 30 pages in length. RETURN OF THE HIGHLANDER - the complete novel A Scottish Prisoner… Nothing means more to Scottish heiress Larena Campbell than saving her father from the gallows. While on an urgent mission to deliver his pardon from the King, she and her English escorts are attacked by a pair of fierce Scottish rebels. When she is dragged unconscious back to the stronghold of Angus the Lion, a powerful and dangerous Scottish laird, she is furious with her captors and determined to escape at any cost… Captor and Protector… Highland scout, Darach MacDonald, is suspicious of the beautiful and defiant heiress who clocked him in the head during the skirmish with the enemy Redcoats. He suspects she will stop at nothing to win her freedom. When he is assigned the task of shepherding the heiress back to her home, he quickly discovers that spending countless nights on the open road with a lassie as temptingly beautiful as Larena Campbell is enough to drive any hot-blooded Scot mad with savage desire. Suddenly he is overcome by a need to claim her as his own, but when they arrive at her father’s castle, all may not be what it seems… TAKEN BY THE HIGHLANDER - the complete novel A Warrior with a Secret… Logan MacDonald, fierce warrior and bold scout for Angus the Lion, hides a shameful secret. When he arrives injured at a crofter’s cottage in Campbell territory during a secret mission for his laird, he is immediately suspected of treachery…. A Woman with a Vision When Mairi Campbell stumbles across the mysterious wounded Highlander in a moonlit glen—a member of an enemy clan—she is strangely beguiled and cannot resist the desire to unearth the secrets of his darkened soul. Soon, Mairi surrenders to forbidden passion in his bed, which thrusts her into the middle of a war—in a battle for Scottish freedom, and in a battle against the true desires of her heart…. “When it comes to passionate highland romance, Julianne MacLean delivers.” - New York Times bestselling author Laura Lee Guhrke
