by Barbara Demick (2009)
A remarkable view into North Korea, as seen through the lives of six ordinary citizens Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years--a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung, the unchallenged rise to power of his son Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape most of us have never before seen, award-winning journalist Barbara Demick brings to life what it means to be living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today--an Orwellian world that is by choice not connected to the Internet, in which radio and television dials are welded to the one government station, and where displays of affection are punished; a police state where informants are rewarded and where an offhand remark can send a person to the gulag for life. Demick takes us deep inside the country, beyond the reach of government censors. Through meticulous and sensitive reporting, we see her six subjects--average North Korean citizens--fall in love, raise families, nurture ambitions, and struggle for survival. One by one, we experience the moments when they realize that their government has betrayed them. Nothing to Envy is a groundbreaking addition to the literature of totalitarianism and an eye-opening look at a closed world that is of increasing global importance. From the Hardcover edition.
Donald Sassoon
This popular text provides a detailed study of the social and economic structures that underpin the Italian political system. Thoroughly updated, the second edition includes coverage of the 1994 election results and the rise of Berlusconi's Forza Italia, the impact of European integration and the anti-corruption campaign of the early 1990s.
Elizabeth York Enstam
Throughout the history of Dallas, women have worked both alongside and apart from the men now remembered as the city's founders and builders. In truth, women helped to create the definitive forms of urban life by establishing organizations and agencies that altered the responsibilities and functions of local government, amended the public conception of political issues, changed the city's physical structure, and affected the day-to-day lives of thousands of people. In Women and the Creation of Urban Life, Elizabeth York Enstam examines how women stretched, redefined, and at times erased the essentially artificial boundaries between female and male, between "the private" and "the public" as aspects of human endeavor. Enstam traces the ways national trends were expressed at the local level and analyzes women's accomplishments and the importance of their work as they assumed community leadership in perpetuating the traditions, education, fine arts, and customs of the larger culture, and in implementing Progressive principles in a specific community.
Abbas Abdelkarim
This book analyses some important social, economic and political processes of change, stagnation and development in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council as a result of oil revenue. Part I addresses the impact of oil in redefining the distributive role of the state and in shaping economic policies. Lack of population policies, problems of national human resources development and the slow change in gender relations is presented in part II with reference to some country experiences. Part III deals with the impact of the Gulf War on causing limited change in the regional political systems and in raising security fears which have led to a huge increase in the already high military expenditure.
Eric Foner
A critical biography of the Revolutionary pamphleteer, exploring the origins, expression, and impact of his ideas and the place of his radical ideology in the eighteenth-century world.