You don't have to be a student of geography or cartography to have an interest in the world around you, especially with globalization making our planet seem smaller than ever. Now you can IM someone in Alaska, purchase coffee beans from Timor-Leste, and visit Dubai. But what do we really know about these lands?Who Owns the World presents the results of the first-ever landownership survey of all 197 states and 66 territories of the world, and reveals facts both startling and...

“A lucidly written, shrewdly argued meditation on how democrats and dictators preserve political authority.” —Wall Street JournalBruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith’s canonical book on political science turns conventional wisdom on its head. They start from a single proposition: leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don’t care about the “national interest”—or even their subjects—unless they must. As Bueno de Mesquita and Smith show, democrac...

An “impressive” (Wall Street Journal) exposé of twenty-first century individuals and companies who have become obscenely rich from the resource trade in AfricaAfrica is the world’s poorest continent and, arguably, its richest. In The Looting Machine, Tom Burgis takes readers on a gripping journey into the world of the magnates and militiamen, the despots and jet-setting executives who gorge on Africa’s vast stocks of oil, gas, metals, and precious...

Get ahead of emerging markets with top-performer picks for up-and-comersFrontier helps investors successfully navigate markets that are yet to “emerge,” with expert advice on spotting opportunities and minimising risks. With first-hand insights into frontier markets as we travel with big-name fund managers from Mark Mobius to Morgan Stanley, this practical guide ranks countries, stocks and bonds on a five- to ten-year horizon to steer investors toward the ...

Offering enhanced coverage of Africa, the Middle East, and the 20th century, this new edition of The World That Trade Created brings to life international trade and its actors. In a series of brief, highly readable vignettes, the authors show clearly that the seemingly modern concept of economic globalization has deep historical roots.

Barack Obama is the 44th and current President of the United States, and the first African American to hold the office. Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he served as president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms repres...

Africa's diamond wars took four million lives. They destroyed the lives of millions more and they crippled the economies of Angola, the Congo, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The biggest UN peacekeeping forces in the world—in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Congo and Côte d’Ivoire―are the legacy of 'conflict' or 'blood diamonds'.'Blood on the Stone' tells the story of how diamonds came to be so dangerous. It describes the history of the great diamond cartel and how it gradually lost control o...

The Guyana StoryFrom Earliest Times to Independence traces the countrys history from thousands of years ago when the first Amerindian groups began to settle on the Guyana territory. It examines the period of early European exploration leading to Dutch colonization, the forcible introduction of African slaves to work on cotton and sugar plantations, the effects of European wars, and the final ceding of the territory to the British who ruled it as their colony until they finally granted it i...

What is a Micro Nation?A micro nation can actually be referred to as new country project or a model country. The definition of a micro nation is thus rendered:“An entity that resembles a nation or a state, but which for the most part exists only on paper, on the Internet, or in the mind of its creator.”Also referred to as:“Model countries and new country projects -- are entities that claim to be independent nations or states but which are un...

Rhodesia, a country in southern Africa, was a fairly prosperous British colony until the mid-1960s; however, the black African majority of Rhodesia was ruled by a handful of white leaders. The country fought Great Britain in a 15-year war for independence, which it ultimately achieved in 1980. Zimbabwe, as the new country became known, saw its prosperity decline dramatically under Robert Mugabe, its first ruler. He seized total control over the country and persecuted his political enemies....

To the new student of international law, the subject can appear extremely complex: a system of laws created by states, international courts and tribunals operating at the national and global level. A clear guide to the subject is essential to ensure understanding. This handbook provides exactly that: written by an expert who both teaches and practises in the field, it focuses on what the law is; how it is created; and how it is applied to solve day-to-day problems. It offers a practical ap...

Even before the country became independent in 1962, Rwanda's two largest ethnic groups, the Hutu and Tutsi, were often at war. In the spring of 1994, tensions between the two groups culminated in nationwide massacres of approximately 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu. The genocide drew international attention to the problems of this small state in central Africa. Since the genocide ended, Rwanda has made slow but steady progress. In 2003, a new constitution was adopted that would prevent fut...