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...

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...

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...

International Law is both an introduction to the subject and a critical consideration of its central themes and debates. The opening chapters of the book explain how international law underpins the international political and economic system by establishing the basic principle of the independence of States, and their right to choose their own political, economic, and cultural systems. Subsequent chapters then focus on considerations that limit national freedom of choice (e.g. human rights,...

How can we be sure terrorists aren't entering our country?What does it mean to be a citizen?Do immigrants help or hurt the economy?What's wrong with calling someone an illegal immigrant?In this Skeptic's Guide™ Dale Hanson Bourke sheds light on key terms and concepts, historical events and current concerns that drive the immigration debate. Such a complex issue offers no easy answers, but with charts and photos, facts and quotes, this dynamic guide sheds light without adding heat to the mo...

In the late Eighteenth Century, a goldsmith and early European banker by the name of Meyer Anselm Rothschild convened a secret meeting in Frankfurt Germany, of 13 prominent Jewish banking families, for the purpose of formulating a plan to oppose the power of the Catholic Church and gain control of the western world through financial and political manipulation. Throughout the centuries, this close affiliation of international bankers and heads of state has been referred to by many different...

Jacob Oluwatayo Adeuyan is a Geologist by profession and received his education at Kiev University -Ukrane, graduated with Bachelor of Science Exploration Geology in 1971. Worked with the Federal Government of Nigeria from 1971 - 1978 and retired to form his own Engineering Firm - Geotek (Nig) Engineering Company from 1978 - 1983 as the Managing Director. Between 1983 - 1991, he entered politics and in 1991, he was forced to move out of his country for fear of persecution by the military j...