Politics

It started very small and full of hope, but its daring campaigns have placed Fairtrade goods at the heart of the supermarket shelves. From bananas and coffee beans to cotton and chocolate, Fairtrade has grown to become an important global movement that has revolutionised the way we shop. As Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, explains in this fascinating story, Fairtrade is about a better deal for workers and farmers in the developing world. It's about making sure the food on our plates, and shirts on our backs, don... read more

In September 1996, a fourteen-year-old Fatima Bhutto hid in a windowless dressing room, shielding her baby brother while shots rang out in the streets outside the family home in Karachi. This was the evening that her father Murtaza was murdered, along with six of his associates. In December 2007, Benazir Bhutto, Fatima's aunt, and the woman she had publically accused of ordering her father's murder, was assassinated in Rawalpindi. It was the latest in a long line of tragedies for one of the world's best known political dynasties. ... read more

War has spread from the borders of India to the forests in the very heart of the country. Combining brilliant analysis and reportage by one of India's iconic writers, "Broken Republic" examines the nature of progress and development in the emerging global superpower, and asks fundamental questions about modern civilization itself - in three incisive essays: Mr Chidambaram's War 'The low, flat-topped hills of south Orissa have been home to the Dongria Kondh long before there was a country called India or a state called Orissa ...' W... read more

Julian Assange: the Unauthorised Biography WikiLeaks has helped redefine our idea of investigative journalism and our understanding of how information should be disseminated. Julian Assange, the visionary creator of and driving force behind this new publishing phenomenon, has a unique perspective on how WikiLeaks has evolved into one of today's most influential and fearless news organisations. In this revelatory account, Assange expands on the philosophies that underpin his stateless, ground-breaking media company. He draws on his... read more

Rejecting the dictatorship of world financial markets and defending the social values of modern democracy, Hessel reminds us that life and liberty must still be fought for. She urges us to reclaim those essential rights we have permitted our governments to erode since the end of World War II.

An irreverent travel guide to Nigeria, a country which 'gets fewer voluntary visitors than the moon' - by the daughter of Ken Saro Wiwa; introduces a wonderfully engaging new writer.
Noo Saro-Wiwa was brought up in England, but every summer she was dragged back to Nigeria - a country she viewed as an annoying parallel universe where she had to relinquish all her creature comforts and sense of individuality. Then her father, activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, was murdered there, and she didn't return for 10 years. Recently, she decided t... read more

For nearly two decades, the US and its allies have prosecuted war and aggression in Iraq. Erasing Iraq shows in unparalleled detail the devastating human cost. Western governments and the mainstream media continue to ignore or play down the human costs of the war on Iraqi citizens This has allowed them to present their role as the benign guardians of Iraqi interests. The authors deconstruct this narrative by presenting a portrait of the total carnage in Iraq today as told by Iraqis and other witnesses who experienced it firsthand.... read more

China constitutes a fifth of the world's population. Over the last twenty years its economy has doubled to make it the fifth largest economy in the world; if the pace is repeated over the next twenty it is set to become second only to the US. The speed of its development is stunning, a combination of cheap labour and commitment to science and technology that has never been matched by a developing country. The Pearl River Delta, Shanghai and Beijing have become city-regions whose growth and embrace of modernity strike the visitor wi... read more

A practical, inspirational, revolutionary guide to social innovation Many of us have a deep desire to make the world around us a better place. But often our good intentions are undermined by the fear that we are so insignificant in the big scheme of things that nothing we can do will actually help feed the world's hungry, fix the damage of a Hurricane Katrina or even get a healthy lunch program up and running in the local school. We tend to think that great social change is the province of heroes - an intimidating view of reality ... read more

In this important new collection of interviews with the acclaimed radio journalist David Barsamian, Noam Chomsky discuses U.S. foreign policy in the post-9/11 world. Barsamian has a unique rapport with Chomsky having conducted more interviews and radio broadcasts with him than any other journalist, and here explores topics Chomsky has never before discussed: the 2004 presidential campaign and election; the future of Social Security; the increasing threat of global warming; and new dangers presented by the United States' ever-deepen... read more

China is one of the great nations of the world. Containing roughly twenty per cent of the population of the globe, its economy is booming, and its role on the world's stage is increasingly influential. Yet, this fascinating country is as complex as it is unusual: its inhabitants are denied some of their fundamental human rights. This powerfully written and incisive book throws light on China's record today. From the restrictions on speech and worship to the lack of freedoms under the law, the economy, health and the environment, it... read more

This book covers over two decades of turmoil and change in the Middle East, steered via the history-soaked landscape of Palestine. When Raja Shehadeh first started hill walking in Palestine, in the late 1970s, he was not aware that he was travelling through a vanishing landscape. These hills would have seemed familiar to Christ, until the day concrete was poured over the flora and irreversible changes were brought about by those who claim a superior love of the land.Six walks span a period of twenty-six years, in the hills around R... read more

With his classics of social commentary "The Geography of Nowhere and "Home from Nowhere, James Howard Kunstler has established himself as one of the great commentators on American space and place. Now, with "The Long Emergency, he offers a shocking vision of a post-oil future. The last two hundred years have seen the greatest explosion of progress and wealth in the history of mankind. But the oil age is at an end. The depletion of nonrenewable fossil fuels is about to radically change life as we know it, and much sooner than we thi... read more

The post 9/11 global economy is a new and turbulent system - vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-directing, and fast-changing than ever before. The Age of Turbulence will be an incomparable reckoning with the nature of this new world - how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good or ill, channelled through Greenspan's own experiences working in the command room of the global economy for longer and with greater effect than any other single living figure. He will share the story of the ... read more

Britain eats more fast food than any other country in Europe. It looks good, tastes good, and it's cheap. But the real cost never appears on the menu. Eric Scholsser's explosive bestseller, by turns funny and terrifying, tells the story of our love affair with fast food. He visits the lab that re-creates the smell of strawberries; examines the safety records of abbattoirs; reveals why the fries taste so good and what really lurks between the sesame buns - and shows how fast food is transforming not only our diets but our world. ... read more

Is there a point beyond which the scientist cannot go under any circumstances?' - Heisenberg's uncertainty about nuclear progress. 'I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds' - Oppenheimer quoting the Bhagavad Gita after witnessing the successful demonstration of the atom bomb. The bomb which killed an estimated 140,000 (tbc) civilians in Hiroshima and destroyed the countryside for miles around, was one of the defining moments in world history, if not the defining moment of the twentieth century. That mushroom cloud cast a terrify... read more

In this present age of sophisticated technology, governments and their agencies have the capabilities to track citizens not only on the street (CCTV surveillance equipment is everywhere) but also in the 'privacy' of our homes (we leave a footprint whenever we use the Internet). Governments maintain this level of interference is for our own safety but many worry that the meance of 'Big Brother' as depicted by George Orwell is fast becoming reality. This book analyses the fragmentation of civil liberties in the 'Free West.' Today, US... read more

This book is an attempt to hold the policies of George W. Bush, and his actions as president, up to an ethical standard - including his own. But it goes beyond that. it is also a study in a distinctively American ethic, for there are many features of this ethic that are not widely held elsewhere in the developed world.

This devastating and inspiring book, by one of the world's leading economic thinkers, lays out not only the course of the financial crisis which began in 2007, but its underlying causes, and shows why much more radical reforms are needed than are currently being contemplated if we are to avoid similar 'systemic' crises in the future. It shows why the bailout has been only marginally effective and how it could have been much more so, and outlines the enormous opportunity - not yet taken - to design a new global financial architectur... read more

When, in 1997, the International Atomic Energy Agency unanimously elected Mohamed ElBaradei as its next Director General, few observers could have forecast the dramatic role he would play over the next 12 years. Certainly, the stage onto which Dr. ElBaradei stepped - featuring Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Kim Jong-Il's North Korea, Muammar al-Gaddafi's Libya, and the Islamic Republic of Iran - gave ample opportunity for high-stakes and high-profile decision-making. But no one could have predicted that ElBaradei would be 'the man in the m... read more