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Ants among elephants : an untouchable family and the making of modern India / by Gidla, Sujatha,1963-;
"The stunning true story of an untouchable family who become teachers, and one, a poet and revolutionary. Like one in six people in India, Sujatha Gidla was born an untouchable. While most untouchables are illiterate, her family was educated by Canadian missionaries in the 1930s, making it possible for Gidla to attend elite schools and move to America at the age of twenty-six. It was only then that she saw how extraordinary--and yet how typical--her family history truly was. Her mother, Manjula, and uncles Satyam and Carey were born in the last days of British colonial rule. They grew up in a world marked by poverty and injustice, but also full of possibility. In the slums where they lived, everyone had a political side, and rallies, agitations, and arrests were commonplace. The Independence movement promised freedom. Yet for untouchables and other poor and working people, little changed. Satyam, the eldest, switched allegiance to the Communist Party. Gidla recounts his incredible life--how he became a famous poet, student, labor organizer, and founder of a left-wing guerrilla movement. And Gidla charts her mother's battles with caste and women's oppression. Page by page, Gidla takes us into a complicated, close-knit family as they desperately strive for a decent life and a more just society. A moving portrait of love, hardship, and struggle, Ants Among Elephants is also that rare thing: a personal history of modern India told from the bottom up"--Provided by publisher.LSC
Subjects: Gidla, Sujatha, 1963-; Gidla, Sujatha, 1963-; Dalits; Families; Teachers; Poets, Indic; Revolutionaries; Caste;

Beat the devils / by Weiss, Josh,author.;
"USA, 1958. President Joseph McCarthy sits in the White House, elected on a wave of populist xenophobia and barely-concealed anti-Semitism. The country is in the firm grip of McCarthy's Hueys, a secret police force evolved from the House of Unamerican Activities Committee. Hollywood's sparkling vision of the American dream has been suppressed; its remaining talents forced to turn out endless anti-communist propaganda. LAPD detective Morris Baker-a Holocaust survivor who drowns his fractured memories of the unspeakable in schnapps and work-is called to the scene of a horrific double-homicide. The victims are John Huston, a once-promising but now forgotten film director, and an up-and-coming young journalist named Walter Cronkite. Clutched in the hand of one of the dead men is a cryptic note containing the phrase "beat the devils" followed by a single name: Baker. Did the two men die in a murder-suicide, as the Hueys are quick to conclude, or were they murdered in a coverup designed to protect-or even set in motion-a secret plot connected to Baker's past? In a country where terror grows stronger by the day, and paranoia rises unchecked, Baker is determined to find justice for two men who raised their voices in a time when free speech comes at the ultimate cost. In the course of his investigation, Baker stumbles into a conspiracy that reaches deep into the halls of power and uncovers a secret that could destroy the City of Angels-and the American ideal itself"--
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Historical fiction.; Novels.; Conspiracies; Detectives; Holocaust survivors; Murder;

Typewriter beach : a novel / by Clayton, Meg Waite,author.;
"Set in Carmel-by-the-Sea and in 1950s Hollywood-in the days of the studio system and McCarthy-era scaremongering about an America "riddled with communists and homosexuals"-Typewriter Beach is the unforgettable story of an unlikely friendship between an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a young actress hoping to be Alfred Hitchcock's new star. 1957. Isabella Giori is ten months into a standard 7-year studio contract when she auditions with Hitchcock. Just weeks later, she is sequestered by the studio's "fixer" in a charming little Carmel-by-the-Sea cottage for a secret rendezvous. There, she is awoken by the clack and ding of a typewriter at the cottage next door. Léon Chazan is annoyed as hell when Iz interrupts his work on yet another screenplay he won't be able to sell, because he's been blacklisted. But soon he's speeding down the fog-shrouded Carmel-San Simeon highway, headed for the isolated cliffs of Big Sur, with her in the passenger seat. 2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather's cottage, finds a hidden safe with a World War II-era French passport, an old camera with film still in it, two movie scripts, and a writing Oscar that is not in her grandfather's name-raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was. In its exploration of Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, Typewriter Beach is a heartwarming tale of long-buried secrets; sisterhood and sexism; the importance of free speech, story, and name; and what it means to be family"--
Subjects: Historical fiction.; Novels.; Actresses; Blacklisting of authors; Man-woman relationships; Screenwriters; Secrecy;

Surveillance state : inside China's quest to launch a new era of social control / by Chin, Josh,author.; Lin, Liza,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Josh Chin and Liza Lin's Surveillance State is a groundbreaking work of investigative nonfiction on life in China's burgeoning surveillance state People living in democracies have for decades drawn comfort from the notion that their form of government, for all its flaws, is the best history has managed to produce. Surveillance State documents with startling detail how even as China's Communist Party pays lip service to democracy as a core value of "socialism with Chinese characteristics," it is striving for something new: a political model that shapes the will of the people not through the ballot box but through the sophisticated-and often brutal-harnessing of data. On the country's remote Central Asian frontier, where a separatist movement strains against Party control, China's leaders have built a dystopian police state that keeps millions under the constant gaze of security forces armed with AI. Across the country in the city of Hangzhou, the government is weaving a digital utopia, where tech giants help optimize the friction out of daily life. Award-winning journalists Josh Chin and Liza Lin take readers on a journey through both places, and several in between, as they document the Party's ambitious push-aided, in some cases, by American technology-to engineer a new society around the power of digital surveillance. China is hardly alone. As faith in democratic principles wavers, advances in surveillance have upended debate about the balance between security and liberty in countries around the globe, including the US. Succeed or fail, the Chinese experiment has implications for people everywhere"--
Subjects: Artificial intelligence; Electronic surveillance; Internal security; Social control;

A woman I know : female spies, double identities, and a new story of the Kennedy assassination / by Haverstick, Mary,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Independent filmmaker Mary Haverstick thought she'd stumbled onto the project of a lifetime--a biopic of aviation pioneer Jerrie Cobb, the key figure in a group of extraordinary women who in 1960 passed the same tests as the legendary male astronauts of the Mercury 7 but never went to space. Just as casting was set to begin, Haverstick received a mysterious warning from a government agent; soon she began to suspect that there was more to Jerrie's story than what met the eye. As she dug deeper, she discovered that Jerrie's life shadowed that of a mysterious CIA agent named June Cobb, whose espionage career traced an arc of intrigue from the jungles of South America to Fidel Castro's Cuba, to the communist literary circles in Mexico City--and ultimately into the dark heart of the Kennedy assassination in Dallas. Haverstick's attempt to learn the truth directly from Jerrie would plunge her into a cat-and-mouse game that stretched across a decade, deep into a thicket of coded CIA files. As she uncovered a remarkable set of mostly unknown women whose high-stakes intelligence work left its only traces in redacted files, she also found shocking new clues about what really happened at Dealey Plaza in 1963. Offering fresh insight into the Kennedy assassination and a vivid picture of women in midcentury intelligence, A Woman I Know brings to life the astonishing duplicities of the Cold War intelligence game, a world where code names and hidden identities were the lifeblood of spies bent on seeking advantage by any means necessary."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Personal narratives.; Cobb, Jerrie.; Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963; Espionage, American; Spies; Women air pilots;

Why Taiwan matters : a short history of a small island that will dictate our future / by Brown, Kerry,1967-author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."Taiwan expert Kerry Brown sums up the history of Taiwan and the danger of a Chinese takeover in this succinct and authoritative book. When the bloody Chinese Civil War concluded in 1949, two Chinas were born. Mao's Communists won and took China's mainland; Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists fled to Taiwan island. Since then, China and Taiwan have drifted into being separate political and cultural entities. Taiwan is now a flourishing democracy and an economic success story: just one of its companies produces over 90 per cent of the semiconductors that power the world's economy. It is a free and vibrant society. For the United States and the West, the island is a bastion of freedom against China's assertive presence in the region. And yet China, increasingly bellicose under Xi Jinping, insists Taiwan is part of its territory and must be returned to it. Should China blockade the island and mount an invasion, it would set off a chain reaction that would pitch it against the US -- escalating a regional war into a global one. Taiwan is thus a geopolitical powder keg. Why Taiwan Matters helps us understand how and why we've arrived at this dangerous moment in history. With unparalleled access to Taiwan's political leaders and a deep understanding of the island's history and culture, Professor Kerry Brown provides a new reading of Taiwan, its twenty-three million people, and how they navigate being caught in this frightening geopolitical standoff. Why Taiwan Matters is the essential book for understanding Taiwan's unique story told in an accessible, expert and urgent way"--

The book thieves : the Nazi looting of Europe's libraries and the race to return a literary inheritance / by Rydell, Anders,1982-author.; Koch, Henning,1962-translator.; translation of:Rydell, Anders,1982-Boktjuvarna.English.;
Includes bibliographical references and index.While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves - Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe's libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin's public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.
Subjects: Book thefts; Libraries and national socialism; World War, 1939-1945; World War, 1939-1945;

The metaverse : and how it will revolutionize everything / by Ball, Matthew,author.;
The term "Metaverse" is suddenly everywhere, from the front pages of national newspapers and the latest fashion trends to the plans of the most powerful companies in history. It is already shaping the policy platforms of the US government, the European Union, and the Chinese Communist Party. But what, exactly, is the Metaverse? As pioneering theorist and venture capitalist Matthew Ball explains, it is a persistent and interconnected network of 3D virtual worlds that will eventually serve as the gateway to most online experiences, and also underpin much of the physical world. For decades, these ideas have been limited to science fiction and video games, but they are now poised to revolutionize every industry and function, from finance and healthcare to education, consumer products, city planning, dating, and well beyond. Taking us on an expansive tour of the "next internet," Ball demonstrates that many proto-Metaverses are already here, such as Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox. Yet these offer only a glimpse of what is to come. Ball presents a comprehensive definition of the Metaverse before explaining the technologies that will power it and the breakthroughs that will be necessary to fully realize it. He addresses the governance challenges the Metaverse entails; investigates the role of Web3, blockchains, and NFTs; and predicts Metaverse winners and losers. Most importantly, he examines many of the Metaverse's almost unlimited applications. The internet will no longer be at arm's length; instead, it will surround us, with much of our lives, labor, and leisure taking place inside the Metaverse. Bringing clarity and authority to a frequently misunderstood concept, Ball foresees trillions of dollars in new value and the radical reshaping of society.
Subjects: Computers and civilization.; Human-computer interaction.; Mixed reality.; Science; Shared virtual environments.; Virtual reality.; Internet;

A stone is most precious where it belongs : a memoir of Uyghur exile, hope, and survival / by Hoja, Gulchehra,author.;
"In February 2018, twenty-four members of Gulchehra Hoja's family disappeared overnight. In one evening, all those she had left behind in Ürümchi when she fled to a new life in the United States were arrested because of her. Her crime--and thus that of her family--was her award-winning investigations for Radio Free Asia on the plight of the Uyghur people. A Stone is Most Precious Where it Belongs is Gulchehra Hoja's stunning literary memoir, taking us into the everyday world of life under Chinese rule in East Turkistan (more formally as the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China). The grandchild of a renowned Uyghur musician and the daughter of an esteemed Uyghur archaeologist, Hoja grew up with her people's culture and history running through her veins. She showed her gifts early on as a dancer, actress, and storyteller, putting her on a path to success as a major television star for China's state TV. Slowly though, she began to realize the realities of Communist rule and understand what China was doing to her people. As her rising fame and growing political awakening coincided, she made the decision to flee the US, where she has fight to expose the crimes Beijing is committing in the far reaches of its nation. Revealing the beauty of East Turkistan and its people--its music, its culture, its heritage, and above all its emphasis on community and family, A Stone is Most Precious Where it Belongs gives us a glimpse beyond what the Chinese state wants us to see--showcasing a woman who was willing to risk not just her own life, but also that of her family, to expose her people's story to the world"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Hoja, Gulchehra.; Journalists; Uighur (Turkic people); Uighur (Turkic people); Uighur (Turkic people);

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;

Results 51 to 60 of 78 | « previous |