Search:

Results 31 to 40 of 78 | « previous |

The last million : Europe's displaced persons from World War to Cold War / by Nasaw, David,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In May of 1945, German forces surrendered to the Allied powers, effectively putting an end to World War II in Europe. But the aftershocks of this global military conflict did not cease with the signing of truces and peace treaties. Millions of lost and homeless POWs, slave laborers, political prisoners, and concentration camp survivors overwhelmed Germany, a country in complete disarray. British and American soldiers gathered the malnourished and desperate foreigners, and attempted to repatriate them to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, and the USSR. But after exhaustive efforts, there remained over a million displaced persons who either refused to go home or, in the case of many, had no home to which to return. They would spend the next three to five years in displaced persons camps, divided by nationalities, temporary homelands in exile, with their own police forces, churches, schools, newspapers, and medical facilities. The international community couldn't agree on the fate of the Last Million, and after a year of fruitless debate and inaction, an International Refugee Organization was created to resettle them in lands suffering from labor shortages. But no nations were willing to accept the 200,000 to 250,000 Jewish men, women, and children who remained trapped in Germany. In 1948, the United States, among the last countries to accept anyone for resettlement, finally passed a Displaced Persons Bill - but as Cold War fears supplanted memories of WWII atrocities, the bill only granted visas to those who were reliably anti-communist, including thousands of former Nazi collaborators, Waffen-SS members, and war criminals, while barring the Jews who were suspected of being Communist sympathizers or agents because they had been recent residents of Soviet-dominated Poland. Only after the passage of the controversial UN resolution for the partition of Palestine and Israel's declaration of independence were the remaining Jewish survivors finally able to leave their displaced persons camps in Germany."--
Subjects: United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.; International Refugee Organization.; World War, 1939-1945; Refugees; Refugees; Jewish refugees; Political refugees; Jews; Humanitarianism; World War, 1939-1945;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Today Hong Kong, tomorrow the world : what China's crackdown reveals about its plans to end freedom everywhere / by Clifford, Mark,1957-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."A gripping history of China's deteriorating relationship with Hong Kong, and its implications for the rest of the world. For 150 years as a British colony, Hong Kong was a beacon of prosperity where people, money, and technology flowed freely, and residents enjoyed many civil liberties. In preparation for handing the territory over to China in 1997, Deng Xiaoping promised that it would remain highly autonomous for fifty years. An international treaty established a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with a far freer political system than that of Communist China-one with its own currency and government administration, a common-law legal system, and freedoms of press, speech, and religion. But as the halfway mark of the SAR's lifespan approaches in 2022, it is clear that China has not kept its word. Universal suffrage and free elections have not been instituted, harassment and brutality have become normalized, and activists are being jailed en masse. To make matters worse, a national security law that further crimps Hong Kong's freedoms has recently been decreed in Beijing. This tragic backslide has dire worldwide implications-as China continues to expand its global influence, Hong Kong serves as a chilling preview of how dissenters could be treated in regions that fall under the emerging superpower's control. Today Hong Kong, Tomorrow the World tells the complete story of how a city once famed for protests so peaceful that toddlers joined grandparents in millions-strong rallies became a place where police have fired more than 10,000 rounds of tear gas, rubber bullets and even live ammunition at their neighbors, while pro-government hooligans attack demonstrators in the streets. A Hong Kong resident from 1992 to 2021, author Mark L. Clifford has witnessed this transformation firsthand. As a celebrated publisher and journalist, he has unrivaled access to the full range of the city's society, from student protestors and political prisoners to aristocrats and senior government officials. A powerful and dramatic mix of history and on-the-ground reporting, this book is the definitive account of one of the most important geopolitical standoffs of our time"--
Subjects: Civil rights;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Stalin's daughter : the extraordinary and tumultuous life of Svetlana Alliluyeva / by Sullivan, Rosemary,1947-;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The award-winning author of Villa Air-Bel returns with a painstakingly researched, revelatory biography of Svetlana Stalin, a woman fated to live her life in the shadow of one of history's most monstrous dictators--her father, Josef Stalin. Born in the early years of the Soviet Union, Svetlana Stalin spent her youth inside the walls of the Kremlin. Communist Party privilege protected her from the mass starvation and purges that haunted Russia, but she did not escape tragedy--the loss of everyone she loved, including her mother, two brothers, aunts and uncles, and a lover twice her age, deliberately exiled to Siberia by her father. As she gradually learned about the extent of her father's brutality after his death, Svetlana could no longer keep quiet and in 1967 shocked the world by defecting to the United States--leaving her two children behind. But although she was never a part of her father's regime, she could not escape his legacy. Her life in America was fractured; she moved frequently, married disastrously, shunned other Russian exiles, and ultimately died in poverty in Spring Green, Wisconsin. With access to KGB, CIA, and Soviet government archives, as well as the close cooperation of Svetlana's daughter, Rosemary Sullivan pieces together Svetlana's incredible life in a masterful account of unprecedented intimacy. Epic in scope, it's a revolutionary biography of a woman doomed to be a political prisoner of her father's name. Sullivan explores a complicated character in her broader context without ever losing sight of her powerfully human story, in the process opening a closed, brutal world that continues to fascinate us. Illustrated with photographs"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Allilueva, Svetlana, 1926-2011.; Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953; Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953; Children of heads of state; Defectors; Immigrants;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

I love Russia : reporting from a lost country / by Kosti͡uchenko, Elena,1987-author.; Chavasse, Ilona Yazhbin,translator.; Shayevich, Bela,translator.; translation of:Kosti͡uchenko, Elena,1987-Essays.Selections.English.;
"An unprecedented and intimate portrait of Russia, and a fearless cri de cœur for journalism in opposition to the global authoritarian turn. To be a journalist is to tell the truth. I Love Russia is Elena Kostyuchenko's fearless and unrelenting attempt to document Putin's Russia as experienced by those whom it systematically and brutally erases: village girls recruited into sex work, queer people in the outer provinces, patients and doctors at a Ukrainian maternity ward, and reporters like herself. The result is a singular portrait of a nation, and of a young woman who refuses to be silenced. In March 2022, as a reporter for Russia's last free press, Novaya Gazeta, Kostyuchenko crossed the border into Ukraine to cover the war. It was her mission to ensure that Russians witnessed the horrors Putin was committing in their name. She filed her pieces knowing that should she return home, she would likely be prosecuted and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Yet, driven by the conviction that the greatest form of love and patriotism is criticism, she continues to write, undaunted and with eyes wide open. I Love Russia stitches together reportage from the past 15 years with personal essays, assembling a kaleidoscopic narrative that Kostyuchenko understands may be the last work from her country that she'll publish for a long time--perhaps ever. She writes because the threat of Putin's Russia extends beyond herself, beyond Crimea, and beyond Ukraine. We fail to understand it at our own peril"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Kosti͡uchenko, Elena, 1987-; Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1952-; Freedom of the press; Journalism; Political culture; Social change;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

My road from Damascus : a memoir / by Saeed, Jamal,1959-author.; Cobham, Catherine,translator.;
"Jamal Saeed arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2016. In his native Syria, as a young man, his writing pushed both social and political norms. For this reason, as well as his opposition to the regimes of the al-Assads, he was imprisoned on three occasions for a total of 12 years. In each instance, he was held without formal charge and without judicial process. My Road from Damascus not only tells the story of Saeed's severe years in Syria's most notorious military prisons but also his life during the country's dramatic changes. Saeed chronicles modern Syria from the 1950s right up to his escape to Canada in 2016, recounting its descent from a country of potential to a pawn of cynical and corrupt powers. It paints a picture of village life, his rebellion as a young Marxist and evolution into a free thinker, living in hiding as a teenager for 30 months while being hunted by the secret police, his youthful love affairs, how he survived his brutal prison years, his final release, and his family's harrowing escape to Canada. While many prison memoirs focus on the cruelty of incarceration, My Road from Damascus offers a tapestry of Saeed's whole life. It looks squarely at brutality, but also at beauty and poetry, hope and love."-- Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Saeed, Jamal, 1959-; Authors, Canadian; Political refugees; Political refugees;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

The power of geography : ten maps that reveal the future of our world / by Marshall, Tim,1959-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Tim Marshall's global bestseller Prisoners of Geography offered us a "fresh way of looking at maps" (The New York Times Book Review), showing how every nation's choices are limited by mountains, rivers, seas and concrete. Since then, the geography hasn't changed, but the world has. Now, in this revelatory new book, Marshall takes us into ten regions that are set to shape global politics and power. Find out why the Earth's atmosphere is the world's next battleground; why the fight for the Pacific is just beginning; and why Europe's next refugee crisis is closer than we think. In ten chapters covering Australia, The Sahel, Greece, Turkey, the UK, Iran, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Spain and Space, Marshall explains how a region's geography and physical characteristics affect the decisions made by its leaders. Innovative, compelling, and delivered with Marshall's trademark wit and insight, this is a gripping and enlightening exploration of the power of geography to shape humanity's past, present, and-most importantly-our future"--
Subjects: Geopolitics.; World politics.;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Dead land / by Paretsky, Sara,author.;
Chicago may be the city of broad shoulders, but its political law is "Pay to Play." Money changes hands in the middle of the night, and by morning, buildings and parks are replaced by billion-dollar projects. Chicago PI V.I. Warshawski gets pulled into one of these clandestine deals through her impetuous goddaughter, Bernie Fouchard. Bernie tries to rescue Lydia Zamir, a famed singer-songwriter now living on the streets; Zamir's life fell apart when her lover was murdered next to her in a mass shooting at an outdoor concert. Not only does Bernie plunge her and V.I. headlong into the path of some ruthless developers, they lead to the murder of the young man Bernie is dating. The detective finds a terrifying conspiracy stretching from Chicago's parks to a cover-up of the dark chapters in America's meddling in South American politics. Before she finds answers, this electrifying novel pushes V.I. close to the breaking point: People who pay to play take no prisoners.
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Warshawski, V. I. (Fictitious character); Women private investigators; Murder; Conspiracies;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Rough justice / by Smith, Brad,1957-;
"After ten years' absence and a spell in prison, Carl Burns has returned to his hometown of Rose City to offer support to his estranged daughter Kate, currently one of four witnesses testifying against former Mayor Joseph Sanderson III, who stands accused of multiple counts of underage rape. Carl is determined to get justice for Kate, whatever it takes. But with his former sister-in-law Frances his only ally, he finds himself incurring the wrath of powerful enemies as he attempts to uncover the shocking truth beneath the shocking truth beneath the layers of corruption and lies which engulf the town."--Publisher.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Misconduct in office; Political corruption; Rape victims; Trials (Rape);
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

To kill a troubadour / by Walker, Martin,1947 January 23-author.;
"Les Troubadours, a folk music group that Bruno has long supported, go viral with their new number, 'Song for Catalonia,' when the Spanish government suddenly bans the song. The songwriter, Joel Martin, is a local enthusiast for the old Occitan language of Périgord and the medieval troubadours, and he sympathizes with the Catalan bid for independence. The success of his song provokes outrage among extreme Spanish nationalists. Then, in a stolen car found on a Périgord back road, police discover a distinctive bullet for a state-of-the-art sniper's rifle that can kill at three kilometers, and they fear that Joel might be the intended target. The French and Spanish governments agree to mount a joint operation to stop the assailants, and Bruno is the local man on the spot who mobilizes his resources to track them down. While Bruno tries to keep the peace, his friend Florence reaches out for help. Her abusive ex-husband is about to be paroled from prison and she fears he will return to reclaim their children. Will Bruno and Florence be able to prevent this unwanted visit? Despite the pressures, there is always time for Bruno to savor les plaisirs of the Dordogne around the table with friends."--
Subjects: Detective and mystery fiction.; Novels.; Courrèges, Bruno (Fictitious character); Abusive men; Attempted assassination; Composers; Criminal investigation; Folk music groups; Nationalism; Police chiefs; Police; Political ballads and songs;
Available copies: 1 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

No straight road takes you there : essays for uneven terrain / by Solnit, Rebecca,author.; Solnit, Rebecca.Essays.Selections.;
"Beginning with an essay about a three-hundred-year-old violin and what it can tell us about forests, abundance, and climate, and ending with on about a prisoner dreaming of seeing the ocean, No Straight Road Takes You There deftly bridges the political and the literary, offering unique insights, nuanced understanding, and inspiration for the challenging work ahead. In her latest essay collection, the award-winning author explores climate change, feminism, democracy, hope, and power and its abuse. Throughout she asks us to heed the stories we tell or have been told, and the ways those stories can be, or should be changed. Solnit offers a reappraisal of the value of indirect consequences, an embrace of unpredictability, slowness, and imperfection in the politics of how to change the world"--
Subjects: Essays.; Climatic changes.; Democracy.; Feminism.; Hope.; Power (Social sciences); Social change.;
Available copies: 0 / Total copies: 1
unAPI

Results 31 to 40 of 78 | « previous |