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 decided to return to Afghanistan to help those who had suffered throughout the years of the invasion, the reign of the Taliban and post 9/11 trauma. A true heroine, she smuggled herself across borders in va... 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 century of high and accelerating growth in the developing world and a new convergence with the advanced countries a trend that is set to reshape the world. Michael Spence explains what happened to cause this dram... 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 long. He finds that, objectively, it is impossible to tell who was the winner and who was the loser a mere twenty-five years after a war has ended. Leaders have always convinced their nations that fighting a war i... read more

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

Against the Machine is a fascinating look at how the Internet is reshaping the way we think about ourselves and the world. Siegel explores how the internet affects culture and social life, particularly the psychological, emotional and social cost of high-tech solitude. Arguing that the internet's widespread anonymity eliminates boundaries and encourages otherwise polite people to be downright abusive, Siegel discusses the half-fantasy, half-realism of online personae. By experiencing virtual selves rather than other individuals, we... read more

We have less time for the needed global transformation than many had hoped or expected. Resource scarcity is already upon us in the form of soaring oil and food prices and a cascade of climate shocks. The soaring prices are not merely cyclical or the result of financial speculation - these remarkable price hikes, considered together with the climate shocks that helped to cause them, are actually the leading edge of the ecological crises that will sink us unless we act more rapidly and decisively. It's high time - indeed in the ... read more

There is more information in the world than ever before - but who is in control? At the centre is the Establishment: governments, corporations andpowerful individuals who have more knowledge about us, and more power, than at any other time in history. Circling them is a new generation of hackers, pro-democracy campaigners and internet activists who no longer accept that the Establishment should run the show. In her gripping, revelatory new book, award-winning journalist and campaigner Heather Brooke takes us inside the Inform... read more

Kim Barker is not your typical, impassive foreign correspondent - she is candid, self-deprecating, laugh-out-loud funny. At first an awkward newbie in Afghanistan, she grows into a wisecracking, seasoned reporter with grave concerns about the US forces' ability to win hearts and minds in the region. In The Taliban Shuffle, Barker offers an insider's account of the 'forgotten war' in Afghanistan and Pakistan, chronicling the years after America's initial routing of the Taliban. When Barker arrives in Kabul, foreign aid is at a recor... read more

The 'war on terror' in Afghanistan and beyond has been the longest foreign war in New Zealand history, yet most New Zealanders know almost nothing about their country's part in it. For ten years, nearly everything controversial or potentially unpopular was kept secret, and obscured by a steady flow of military public relations stories. Based on thousands of leaked New Zealand military and intelligence documents, extensive interviews with military and intelligence officers and eye-witness accounts from the soldiers on the ground, Ni... read more

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 American discourse in the months immediately following. Chomsky placed the attacks in context, marshalling his deep and nuanced knowledge of American foreign policy to trace the history of American political aggressio... read more

Offers an account of BP oil corporation in crisis, and examines how crucial decisions made during BP's remarkable turnaround paved the way for its darkest hour.

* This is an engaging new book from one of the most influential and widely read sociologists in the world today.

This years best selling Massey Lecture The Wayfinders takes readers on a journey through time on a discovery of ancient wisdoms, languages and cultures. Some are already extinct, others are quickly on their way out. It is estimated that 50% of the languages spoken today will disappear in our lifetime. The Wayfinders is an enlightening, awe-inspiring and cautionary look at vanishing cultures and languages from one of the worlds most celebrated and distinguished anthropologists.

I AM AMERICA (AND SO CAN YOU!) is Stephen Colbert's attempt to wedge his brain between hardback covers. In plain conversational language, not to mention the occasional grunt and/or whistle, Stephen explains his take on the most pressing concerns of our culture: Faith, Family, Politics...Hygiene.

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.

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 men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century combined. More girls are killed in this routine 'gendercide' in any one decade than people were slaughtered in all the genocides of the twentieth c... read more

Every now and again America confronts its demons, walks away from deep internal division, and strives towards justice. Barack Obama: A Movement for Change tells the story of a visionary leader who refuses to be limited by America's history and determines instead to change it. His plan for change is the latest expression of a movement for justice: a movement that has swept forward with the collective energy of great leaders like Martin Luther King, Robert F Kennedy, Lyndon B Johnson, Harold Washington, Chicago's first black Mayor, a... read more

Everybody would agree that fair trade is a good thing. Farmers and suppliers in the developing world should be rewarded for their hard work. Profits should be equitably shared. If only it were that simple. Conor Woodman's explosive new book shows how fair trade has become big business in itself. And, in the process, many of the principles of fair trade have become distorted. Companies sign up to fair trade schemes that yield few practical benefits in order to gain competitive advantage. Money that could go to suppliers gets wast... read more

Greg Mortenson, the bestselling author of "Three Cups of Tea," is a man who has built a global reputation as a selfless humanitarian and children's crusader, and he's been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. But, as Jon Krakauer demonstrates in this extensively researched and penetrating book, he is not all that he appears to be. Based on wide-ranging interviews with former employees, board members, and others who have intimate knowledge of Mortenson and his charity, the Central Asia Institute, "Three Cups of Deceit" uncovers mult... read more

The author has spent years talking to terrorists - from Gaza and Afghanistan, to Indonesia and Europe. In this book, he delivers a fascinating journey into the mindsets of radicalised people in the twenty-first century, and offers deep insights into the history of all religions.