In this saga of brilliant triumphs and magnificent failures, David E. Hoffman, the former Moscow bureau chief for the Washington Post, sheds light on the hidden lives of Russia's most feared power brokers: the oligarchs. Focusing on six of these ruthless men- Alexander Smolensky, Yuri Luzhkov, Anatoly Chubais, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, and Vladimir Gusinsky-Hoffman shows how a rapacious, unruly capitalism was born out of the ashes of Soviet communism.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David E. Hoffman comes the riveting biography of Oswaldo Payá, a dissident who dared to defy Fidel Castro, inspiring thousands of Cubans to fight for democracy.Oswaldo Payá was seven years old when Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, promising to create a "free, democratic, and just Cuba." But Castro instead created an authoritarian regime with little tolerance of free speech or thought. His secret police were trained to crush ...

Encountering Morocco introduces readers to life in this North African country through vivid accounts of fieldwork as personal experience and intellectual journey. We meet the contributors at diverse stages of their careers–from the unmarried researcher arriving for her first stint in the field to the seasoned fieldworker returning with spouse and children. They offer frank descriptions of what it means to take up residence in a place where one is regarded as an outsider, learn the language...

**“A tour de force of investigative history.” —Steve CollThe Dead Hand is the suspense-filled story of the people who sought to brake the speeding locomotive of the arms race, then rushed to secure the nuclear and biological weapons left behind by the collapse of the Soviet Union—a dangerous legacy that haunts us even today.**The Cold War was an epoch of massive overkill. In the last half of the twentieth century the two superpowers had perfected the scien...

**The author is donating all proceeds from this book to Internews to help Ukrainian journalists**Ukraine is the "new Berlin," the front line of Russian American confrontation. It's a place of intrigue, corruption, political blackmail and, yes, romance. The Accidental Oligarch reveals how Ukraine's fate is intimately entangled with our own.After Yuri Yavlinsky is laid off from his job shoveling shit at the Kyiv Zoo, he is promptly arrested for failing to pay a $30 million ta...

“Some rely upon chariots and some upon horses, but as for us, upon the Name of the Lord, our G-d, we call.” Time and again, history has repeated itself for the Jewish people - with Nazi Germany being the prime example. The truncheon-wielding sadistic German soldiers appeared to be in their heyday as they beat their hapless victims into utter subservience. Yet the indomitable Jewish spirit, drawing its strength from the mightiest Source, refused to be crushed. Heroes of Spirit is an outstan...

The Human Rights Act 1998 has had a profound effect in numerous private law decisions and has been the subject of extensive academic debate, in particular on the issue of the extent to which it has horizontal effect and its application in disputes between individuals. With contributions from a variety of academics and practitioners, this volume covers and contributes to the academic debate on horizontal effect and considers how theory matches up with case law; the limits of the Act for pri...

After a chance encounter with a mystical expat on the beach in Mexico, Stanley Waters embarks upon a spiritual journey of self-discovery to decide whether his life is worth living. Suffering from the sudden loss of his wife, and feeling more and more disenchanted with his consumerist American life, he seeks something of lasting value. Will he find it? Or will he ultimately find nothing worth living for?

This book provides an overview of the major findings of the comparative research project, Changes in Networks, Higher Education and Knowledge Society (CINHEKS). The main aim of this international comparative research project is the analysis of how Higher education institutions are networked within distinct knowledge societies in two key regions of the world: Europe and the United States of America. This research project was carried out in four European countries (Finland, Germany, Portugal...

As the memoir of an aerobatic master born to fling his body through cloudbanks, Spitfire Wingman from Tennessee offers a unique birds-eye view of events and personalities of WWII and the Cold War. Encounters with Patton, Vandenberg, Yeager, Truman and Nixon are replayed with perception and wit. While jockeying P-40s, P-51s, and P-47s, he was privileged to see the war both from twenty thousand feet and as a Staff Officer at 9th Air Force HQ in Brussels. A stripped-down Thunderbolt ...

A diverse and exciting collection of commentaries on the traditional Haggadah Hebrew text in two volumes and with a new translation designed to let you know exactly what the Haggadah says. Introductory essays help you understand the historical roots of Passover, the development of the Haggadah, and how to make sense out of texts and customs that evolved from ancient times.

This timely study is the first to examine the relationship between competition for energy resources and the propensity for conflict in the Caspian region. Taking the discussion well beyond issues of pipeline politics and the significance of Caspian oil and gas to the global market, the book offers significant new findings concerning the impact of energy wealth on the political life and economies of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. The contributors, a leading group of scholars and ...