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The map of knowledge : a thousand-year history of how classical ideas were lost and found / by Moller, Violet,author.;
Includes bibliographical references (pages 271-290) and index."The foundations of modern knowledge--philosophy, math, astronomy, geography--were laid by the Greeks, whose ideas were written on scrolls and stored in libraries across the Mediterranean and beyond. But as the vast Roman Empire disintegrated, so did appreciation of these precious texts. Christianity cast a shadow over so-called pagan thought, books were burned, and the library of Alexandria, the greatest repository of classical knowledge, was destroyed. Yet some texts did survive and The Map of Knowledge explores the role played by seven cities around the Mediterranean--rare centers of knowledge in a dark world, where scholars supported by enlightened heads of state collected, translated and shared manuscripts. In 8th century Baghdad, Arab discoveries augmented Greek learning. Exchange within the thriving Muslim world brought that knowledge to Cordoba, Spain. Toledo became a famous center of translation from Arabic into Latin, a portal through which Greek and Arab ideas reached Western Europe. Salerno, on the Italian coast, was the great center of medical studies, and Sicily, ancient colony of the Greeks, was one of the few places in the West to retain contact with Greek culture and language. Scholars in these cities helped classical ideas make their way to Venice in the 15th century, where printers thrived and the Renaissance took root. The Map of Knowledge follows three key texts--Euclid's Elements, Ptolemy's The Almagest, and Galen's writings on medicine--on a perilous journey driven by insatiable curiosity about the world"--
Subjects: Learning and scholarship; East and West.;

The last girl : my story of captivity, and my fight against the Islamic State / by Murad, Nadia,author.; Clooney, Amal,writer of foreword.;
"In this intimate memoir of survival, a former captive of the Islamic State tells her harrowing and ultimately inspiring story. Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15th, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves. Six of Nadia's brothers were killed, and her mother soon after, their bodies swept into mass graves. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade. Nadia would be held captive by several militants and repeatedly raped and beaten. Finally, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety. Today, Nadia's story--as a witness to the Islamic State's brutality, a survivor of rape, a refugee, a Yazidi--has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Murad, Nadia.; IS (Organization); Detention of persons; Human rights workers; Prisoners; Women and war; Women; Yezidis;

Battle sight zero / by Seymour, Gerald,author.;
A searing novel of trust and betrayal in the fight against terrorism. The Kalashnikov AK47 is a weapon with a unique image, symbol of freedom fighters and terrorists across the globe. In a fanatic's hands, inside a crowded shopping mall, it can bring death and mutilation to scores of people in a matter of seconds. MI5 have struggled for years to keep this rifle out of Britain. Andy Knight is a young truck driver. Last year he was doing something different and had another name. Next year, if he survives, he'll be someone else again. That is the dangerous, lonely life of an undercover officer. Andy has befriended Zeinab, a young Muslim student from a small Yorkshire town who is a central part of a murderous, extremist plot. Connections have been made through a veteran Manchester gangster with a source of AK47s in the impoverished, drug-ridden, high rise estates of Marseilles. If Zeinab can find a driver and bring one rifle home on a test run, many more will follow: this is the nightmare scenario for the security forces - with them would come killing on an horrendous scale. Zeinab is both passionate and attractive, and Andy had had drilled into him that the golden rule of undercover work is not to get emotionally close to the target. But, sometimes rules are difficult - impossible - to keep to. Battle Sight Zero follows Andy and Zeinab on their path to the lethal badlands of the French port city, simultaneously tracking the extraordinary life journey of the veteran blood-soaked weapon they are destined to be handed there.
Subjects: Thrillers (Fiction); Great Britain. MI5; Undercover operations; Illegal arms transfers; Intelligence officers; AK-47 rifle; Terrorism; Man-woman relationships;

How the West stole democracy from the Arabs : the Syrian Arab Congress of 1920 and the destruction of its historic liberal-Islamic alliance / by Thompson, Elizabeth F.,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."When Europe's Great War engulfed the Ottoman Empire, Arab nationalists rose in revolt against their Turkish rulers and allied with the British on the promise of an independent Arab state. In October 1918, the Arabs' military leader, Prince Faisal, victoriously entered Damascus and proclaimed a constitutional government in an independent Greater Syria. Faisal won American support for self-determination at the Paris Peace Conference, but other Entente powers plotted to protect their colonial interests. Under threat of European occupation, the Syrian-Arab Congress declared independence on March 8, 1920 and crowned Faisal king of a "civil representative monarchy." Sheikh Rashid Rida, the most prominent Islamic thinker of the day, became Congress president and supervised the drafting of a constitution that established the world's first Arab democracy and guaranteed equal rights for all citizens, including non-Muslims. But France and Britain refused to recognize the Damascus government and instead imposed a system of mandates on the pretext that Arabs were not yet ready for self-government. In July 1920, the French invaded and crushed the Syrian state. The fragile coalition of secular modernizers and Islamic reformers that had established democracy was destroyed, with profound consequences that reverberate still. Using previously untapped primary sources, including contemporary newspaper accounts, reports of the Syrian-Arab Congress, and letters and diaries from participants, How the West Stole Democracy from the Arabs is a groundbreaking account of an extraordinary, brief moment of unity and hope-and of its destruction"--
Subjects: Muʼtamar al-Sūrī al-ʻĀmm (1919-1920); Arab nationalism;

May it have a happy ending : a memoir of finding my voice as my mother lost hers / by Mahtani, Minelle,1971-author.;
"For readers of Crying in H Mart and In the Dream House, a searing, intimate memoir about mothers and daughters, grief and healing, and finding your voice when you thought it lost. Keep quiet when you experience racism -- to protect yourself, and the people you love. This was the very first lesson Minelle Mahtani learned about staying silent. She was six years old. Other lessons would come in time: Take up less space. Ask fewer questions. Try harder to fit in. And from her Hindu, Indian father and Muslim, Iranian mother: Be excellent. Strive for greatness. In her forties, Minelle's left hand began to shake. Then, her left leg went numb. Her body was trying to tell her something -- screaming what she could not say. And then, in the midst of this crisis, a lifeline in the form of a job offer: the chance to speak, to develop her voice, as a radio host. If she only had the courage to try. But as Minelle took tentative steps toward finding herself, she received devastating news: her beloved mother had tongue cancer. Just as Minelle was finding her voice, her mother was losing hers. This is a story about what it means to mourn and heal. It is about the tender yet fragile relationships between mothers and daughters -- relationships weighed down by histories more complex than we can ever know. It is about the myriad ways our voices take flight as people of colour, and about how our ancestors speak to us through the intimate moments in our lives. In exquisite, lyrical prose, May It Have a Happy Ending meditates on the ways grief, race, love and self-expression intersect, and introduces an important new literary voice."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Mahtani, Minelle, 1971-; Mahtani, Minelle, 1971-; Mahtani, Minelle, 1971-; Mothers and daughters;

The eternal Nazi : from Mauthausen to Cairo, the relentless pursuit of SS doctor Aribert Heim / by Kulish, Nicholas.; Mekhennet, Souad.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."The compelling story of the hunt for Aribert Heim, whose decades-long flight from justice turned a mid-level SS officer and concentration camp doctor into the most wanted Nazi war criminal in the world. Dr. Aribert Heim worked at the Mauthausen concentration camp for only a few months in 1941 but left a horrifying mark on the memories of survivors. According to their testimony, Heim euthanized patients with injections of gasoline into their hearts. He performed surgeries on otherwise healthy people. Some recalled prisoners' skulls set out on his desk to display perfect sets of teeth. In the chaos of the postwar period, Heim was able to slip away from his dark past and establish himself as a reputable doctor in the resort town of Baden-Baden. He was tall, handsome, a bit of a charmer, and quickly settled down with a wife and children in peace and comfort. But certain rare individuals in Germany were unwilling to let Nazi war criminals go unpunished. Among them was a police investigator named Alfred Aedtner, who turned finding Heim into an overriding obsession; his quest took him across Europe and across decades, and into a close alliance with legendary Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal. This is the incredible story of how Aribert Heim evaded capture, living in a working-class neighborhood of Cairo, praying in Arabic, beloved by an adopted Muslim family, while inspiring a manhunt that outlived him by many years. He became the "Eternal Nazi," a symbol of Germany's evolving attitude toward the sins of its past, which finally crested in a desire to see justice done at almost any cost"--Provided by publisher.
Subjects: Heim, Aribert, 1914-1982.; Mauthausen (Concentration camp); Fugitives from justice; Fugitives from justice; Human experimentation in medicine; Physicians; War criminals; World War, 1939-1945;

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This [electronic resource] : by El Akkad, Omar.aut; cloudLibrary;
From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in a West that betrays its fundamental values. On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: “One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.” This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times. As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human—not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage. This is El Akkad’s nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.
Subjects: Electronic books.; Personal Memoirs; Middle Eastern; Democracy;
© 2025., McClelland & Stewart,

But you don't look Arab : and other tales of unbelonging / by Gorani, Hala,author.;
Includes bibliographical references."Emmy Award-winning international journalist Hala Gorani weaves stories from her time as a globe-trotting anchor and correspondent with her own lifelong search for identity as the daughter of Syrian immigrants. What is it like to have no clear identity in a world full of labels? How can people find a sense of belonging when they have never felt part of a "tribe?" And how does a blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who's never lived in the Middle East honor her Arab Muslim ancestry and displaced family-a family forced to scatter when their home country was torn apart by war? Hala Gorani's path to self-discovery started the moment she could understand that she was "other" wherever she found herself to be. Born of Syrian parents in America and raised mainly in France, she didn't feel at home in Aleppo, Seattle, Paris, or London. She is a citizen of everywhere and nowhere. And like many journalists who've covered wars and conflicts, she felt most at home on the ground reporting and in front of the camera. As a journalist, Gorani has traveled to some of the most dangerous places in the world, covering the Arab Spring in Cairo and the Syrian civil war, reporting on suicide bombers in Beirut and the chemical attacks in Damascus, watching the growth of ISIS and the war in Iraq-sometimes escaping with her life by a hair. But through it all, she came to understand that finding herself meant not only looking inward, but tracing a long family history of uprooted ancestors. From the courts of Ottoman Empire sultans through the stories of the citizens from her home country and other places torn apart by unrest, But You Don't Look Arab combines Gorani's family history with rigorous reporting, explaining-and most importantly, humanizing-the constant upheavals in the Middle East over the last century"--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Gorani, Hala.; Television journalists; Women journalists;

Girl decoded : a scientist's quest to reclaim our humanity by bringing emotional intelligence to technology / by El Kaliouby, Rana,author.; Colman, Carol,author.;
Includes bibliographical references and index."In a captivating memoir, an Egyptian American visionary and scientist provides an intimate view of her personal transformation as she follows her calling-to humanize our technology and how we connect with one another. Rana el Kaliouby is a rarity in both the tech world and her native Middle East: a Muslim woman in charge in a field that is still overwhelmingly white and male. Growing up in Egypt and Kuwait, el Kaliouby was raised by a strict father who valued tradition-yet also had high expectations for his daughters-and a mother who was one of the first female computer programmers in the Middle East. Even before el Kaliouby broke ground as a scientist, she broke the rules of what it meant to be an obedient daughter and, later, an obedient wife to pursue her own daring dream. After earning her PhD at Cambridge, el Kaliouby, now the divorced mother of two, moved to America to pursue her mission to humanize technology before it dehumanizes us. The majority of our communication is conveyed through nonverbal cues: facial expressions, tone of voice, body language. But that communication is lost when we interact with others through our smartphones and devices. The result is an emotion-blind digital universe that impairs the very intelligence and capabilities-including empathy-that distinguish human beings from our machines. To combat our fundamental loss of emotional intelligence online, she cofounded Affectiva, the pioneer in the new field of Emotion AI, allowing our technology to understand humans the way we understand one another. Girl Decoded chronicles el Kaliouby's journey from being a "nice Egyptian girl" to becoming a woman, carving her own path as she revolutionizes technology. But decoding herself-learning to express and act on her own emotions-would prove to be the biggest challenge of all"--
Subjects: Autobiographies.; Biographies.; El Kaliouby, Rana.; Women computer scientists; Women scientists; Egyptian American women; Artificial intelligence; Artificial intelligence;

Toufah : the woman who inspired an African #MeToo movement / by Jallow, Toufah,author.; Pittaway, Kim,author.;
"Toufah is the story of Toufah Jallow, a brilliant and inspiring young woman who, after she was forced to flee to Canada from her home in The Gambia, bravely bucked taboo and named herself as a survivor of a sexual assault by the country's dictator--launching an unprecedented protest movement. In 2015, Toufah Jallow was the eighteen-year-old daughter of the second wife in her Muslim father's polygamous household. Her mother, outwardly conforming, had made sure that her daughter was educated and had ambitions of her own. Dreaming of a scholarship and finances to produce and tour a one-woman play about how to eradicate poverty in The Gambia, Toufah entered a presidential competition--sometimes called a beauty pageant in the media, but, according to the president, Yahya Jammeh, designed to identify the smart young women of each generation and lend them financial support. Toufah won. At first, Jammeh, who had ruled The Gambia all of Toufah's life and styled himself as a pious yet progressive protector of women, behaved in a fatherly fashion toward her, but then he proposed marriage. When Toufah turned him down, he drugged and raped her, with the collusion of his cousin. Toufah could not tell anyone what had happened. Not only because there was no word for rape in her native language, but because if her parents protested on her behalf they would all be in danger. Jammeh sent his people to follow Toufah, hoping to intimidate and control her. When his cousin sent for her again, she knew she couldn't stay in The Gambia. Hidden under a niqab, a garment she never wore, she made her escape, confiding in no one so she could keep them safe. She fled across the river border to Senegal, where she learned that Jammeh had put in a request to authorities to return her as a "runaway teen." Despite mounting pressure from the Gambian government, two Senegalese police officers put her in contact with UNHCR and other human rights organizations and she was issued a visa for Canada. Two years later, President Jammeh was deposed. Eighteen months after that, in July 2019, Toufah Jallow became the first woman in The Gambia to make a public accusation of rape against him. Her testimony sparked marches of support and launched a social media outpouring of shared stories among West African women under #IAmToufah, setting Toufah Jallow on the path to reclaiming the future that Yahya Jammeh had tried to steal from her, a future of advocacy and leadership for survivors of sexual violence in The Gambia and beyond."--
Subjects: Biographies.; Autobiographies.; Personal narratives.; Jallow, Toufah.; MeToo movement; Rape victims; Refugees; Women; Women;

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