Current Affairs

Forbidden Lessons in a Kabul Guesthouse is an inspirational memoir by Suraya Sadeed, an Afghan woman from a wealthy family who became an exile in America after the Russians invaded. She made a happy and successful life for herself in Virginia with her husband and child. Then, in the wake of her husband's sudden death, she... read more

With the British Industrial Revolution, part of the worlds population started to experience extraordinary economic growthleading to enormous gaps in wealth and living standards between the industrialised West and the rest of the world. This pattern of divergence reversed after World War II, and now we are midway through a cen... read more

While Washington, London and Canberra fiddle, the planet burns. It has become painfully clear that the big democracies won't take the hard decisions to halt climate change. Climate scientists now expect the worst, and they're considering a response which sounds like science fiction: climate engineering. This means large-scale... read more

Analysing two centuries of warfare involving Western nations, this book systematically demolishes every argument that is put forward to justify going to war. By looking at the victors and the vanquished at the end of a major war and then a generation later, Ian Bickerton finds that the rewards of victory in war never last lon... read more

Brilliantly written and mordantly funny, it is a book that continues to make waves.

In 9-11, published in November 2001 and arguably the single most influential post-9/11 book, internationally renowned thinker Noam Chomsky bridged the information gap around the World Trade Center attacks, cutting through the tangle of political opportunism, expedient patriotism, and general conformity that choked off America... read more

This is a shocking expose of the causes of Asia's massive gender imbalance and its consequences across the globe. In 2007, the booming port city of Lianyungang achieved the dubious distinction of having the most extreme gender ratio for children under five in China: 163 boys for every 100 girls. The numbers may not matter muc... read more

For years Rupert Murdoch's newspapers had been hacking, spying, blagging, bribing and destroying the evidence. They thought they were untouchable. They were wrong. This is the book that exposed the shadow state at the heart of Britain. Now fully updated with the very latest in the News Corp scandal, it tells the story of how ... read more

This book is important because it is: Unique. "Heaven on Earth" offers a critique of extremism that is human rights-based and entertaining - combining the comparative approach of Karen Armstrong and the immediacy of Ed Husain ("The Islamist") with storytelling. Timely. At a time of veil bans, Qur'an burnings and English Defen... read more

The first in-depth, authoritative discussion of the role of the press in China and the way the Chinese government uses the media to shape public opinion China's 1.3 billion population may make the country the world's largest, but the vast majority of Chinese share remarkably similar views on these and a wide array of other i... read more

This is a provocative bestseller that explains why the world is divided into nations with wildly differing levels of prosperity. Why are some nations more prosperous than others? "Why Nations Fail" sets out to answer this question, with a compelling and elegantly argued new theory: that it is not down to climate, geography or... read more

Our planet's resources are running out. The media bombards us with constant warnings of impending shortages of fossil fuels, minerals, arable land, and water and the political Armageddon that will result as insatiable global demand far outstrips supply. But how true is this picture? In "Winner Take All", Dambisa Moyo cuts thr... read more

A rip-roaring tale of modern day piracy on the high seas and one of the longest and most dangerous pursuits in maritime history: the 21 day hunt for the Uruguayan fishing vessel suspected of poaching Patagonian Toothfish (aka Chilean Sea Bass) in Australian waters. On 7 August 2003, the patrol boat Southern Supporter came ... read more

There are bad things going on in Burma that you don't know about. There's a civil war (the world's longest running, in fact) raging between the government and ethnic rebels. Much of the United States' heroin comes from there. And there's the small matter that America helped make it all possible with overt funding and the CIA'... read more

Westhoff discusses the factors that drive food prices: not just biofuels, but also weather, income growth, exchange rates, energy prices, government policies, market speculation and so on. Next, he walks through several scenarios for the future, offering indispensable insights for consumers, commodity traders, and policymakers alike.

An expose on the fashion industry written by the Observer's 'Ethical Living' columnist, examining the inhumane and environmentally devastating story behind the clothes we so casually buy and wear. Coming at a time when the global financial crisis and contracting of consumer spending is ushering in a new epoch for the fashion... read more

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting team, husband and wife Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, take us on a journey through Africa and Asia to meet an extraordinary array of exceptional women struggling against terrible circumstances. More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they are girls, than ... read more

When Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, many proclaimed the start of a new Elizabethan Age. Few had any inkling, however, of the stupendous changes that would take place over the next 50 years, in Britain and around the world. In "Our Times", A.N. Wilson takes the reader on an exhilarating journey from that day to this. ... read more

Pope Benedict XVI is coming to the UK on a state visit in September. David Yallop, author of "In God's Name", looks at the current news stories concerning widespread child abuse by priests and shows how the Vatican is not telling the full story. Praise for "In God's Name": 'A thriller without an ending...Yallop has surely pro... read more

The first expose of the secret US-Saudi plot that broke OPEC and brought down the Shah of Iran.

The Oil Kings offers the first inside look at how an oil crisis was manipulated by Alan Greenspan, Donald Rumsfeld, and President Ford (hoping to secure his re-election), helping to precipitate the fall of the Shah of ... read more