Noam Chomsky discusses Western power and propaganda with filmmaker and investigative journalist Andre Vltchek.This book is the perfect introduction to Chomsky's political thinking, and makes a refreshing read for anyone who is uneasy about the West's wider role in the world.Beginning with the New York newsstand where Chomsky started his political education as a teenager, the discussion broadens out to encompass colonialism and imperial control, propaganda and the media, the...

This is a fascinating and at times unsettling journey into the world's most populous Muslim nation as it struggles to emerge from decades of dictatorship and the plunder of its natural resources.Andre Vltchek brings together more than a decade of investigative journalism in and around Indonesia to chart the recent history of the country, from the revolution which overthrew General Suharto's genocidal dictatorship in 1998 to the present day. He covers the full breadth of the country...

ANDRE VLTCHEK is one of this world’s greatest contemporary thinkers. A true internationalist, he does not belong to any single culture; he belongs to the entire world, a world battered by Western imperialism and capitalist fundamentalism. That is why he works relentlessly and courageously at the front lines and battlefields, as well as in the most forgotten corners of the globe; wherever he is needed and wherever our humanity is suffering, struggling and is rising to its feet. This book is...

Admired by some, condemned by others, and feared by all—the military might of the West is undeniably colossal. In On Western Terrorism, world-renowned intellectual Noam Chomsky discusses Western power and propaganda with filmmaker and investigative journalist Andre Vltchek. It offers the perfect introduction to Chomsky’s significant political thought and provides an accessible approach for anyone who wishes to better understand the West’s fraught role in the world.Beginning with st...

As the 100th anniversary of World War I approaches, historian Margaret MacMillan compares current global tensions-rising nationalism, globalization’s economic pressures, sectarian strife, and the United States’ fading role as the world’s pre-eminent superpower-to the period preceding the Great War. In illuminating the years before 1914, MacMillan shows the many parallels between then and now, telling an urgent story for our time. THE BROOKINGS ESSAY: In the spirit of its commitment to high...

Islamic, authoritarian, democratic, developing, disintegrating, Indonesia is an enigma to outside observers who have never seemed sure just what it is.The largest country in its region, Indonesia holds the key to Southeast Asia's future, while recent developments (demands for greater regional autonomy, ethnic, political and religious conflict) are making the archipelago significant on the world stage and prompting re-examination of its history.As a state Indonesia is a twen...

Indonesia, a nation of thousands of islands and almost 250 million people, straddles the junction of the Pacific and Indian oceans. Current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has presided over 6 per cent average yearly growth of its economy, to surpass $1 trillion. If this rate continues, Indonesia will join the world's ten biggest economies in a decade or so, just behind the so-called BRIC countries. The much-discussed recent documentary The Act of Killing revived some of its dar...

Since the Bali bombings of 2002 and the rise of political Islam, Indonesia has frequently occupied media headlines. Nevertheless, the history of the fourth largest country on earth remains relatively unknown. Adrian Vickers' book, first published in 2005, traces the history of an island country, comprising some 240 million people, from the colonial period through revolution and independence to the present. Framed around the life story of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Indonesia's most famous and c...

In this compelling and informative exploration of American foreign policy, Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley delve into the evolution of the United States' global engagement.Since it first appeared in 1971, Rise to Globalism has sold hundreds of thousands of copies. The ninth edition of this classic survey, now updated through the administration of George W. Bush, offers a concise and informative overview of the evolution of American foreign polic...

Pramoedya Ananta Toer (1925-2006) was undoubtedly Indonesia’s most significant novelist and writer. After the 1960 publication of this book, now translated for the first time, Promoedya spent some 20 years in prison often in appalling conditions. The book sets out in the form of nine letters much of the author’s humanist and deeply anti-racialist philosophy as it discussed the history and needs of Indonesia’s large and long-established Chinese population who were facing increasing official...

In the current Middle East, insurgency tactics are used with frequency and increasing success. But guerrilla war-fare is not just the tool of modern-day terrorists. Its roots stretch back to our very own revolution.In Violent Politics, William Polk takes us on a concise, brilliant tour of insurgencies throughout history, starting with the American struggle for independence, when fighters had to battle against both the British and the loyalists, those colonists who sided wi...

A chronological compilation of twentieth-century world events in one volume—from the acclaimed historian and biographer of Winston S. Churchill.The twentieth century has been one of the most unique in human history. It has seen the rise of some of humanity's most important advances to date, as well as many of its most violent and terrifying wars. This is a condensed version of renowned historian Martin Gilbert's masterful examination of the century's history, offer...