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Religious Leaders and Conflict Transformation: Northern Ireland and Beyond

Nukhet Sandal

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Religious dimension of contemporary conflicts and the rise of faith-based movements worldwide...

The Folly

Ivan Vladislavic

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Mr and Mrs Malgas are going quietly about their lives when a mysterious squatter appears on the...

Of Women

Shami Chakrabarti

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A powerful book written specifically for these times on the need for - and a specific route to -...

Mandela: My Prisoner, My Friend

Christo Brand and Barbara Jones

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Christo Brand was a South African farm boy, born into the Afrikaans culture which had created...

David Goldblatt + Nadine Gordimer: On the Mines

David Goldblatt and Nadine Gordimer

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"On the Mines" is a re-designed and expanded version of David Goldblatts influential book of 1973....

Suswatibasu (1701 KP) rated The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in Books

Sep 16, 2017

Detailed, disturbing, an absolute must-read

An absolutely staggering and essential read about America's new apartheid / caste system, created under the guise of the War on Drugs.

Since the civil rights movements and traced back to its origins from the Jim Crow laws, Michelle Alexander discusses how the prison and judicial system is basically used to force African Americans into an underclass. They are not entitled to jobs, housing, benefits and even voting in some cases, stripping them of human rights well after punishment. As 'criminals' they are vilified by all alike thus continually treated like scum.

For others, it's a situation of arresting African Americans en masse for drug crimes, also committed by their white counterparts but are conveniently ignored.

And police forces around the country are continually given bigger budgets to carry out such arrests to bolster their credentials. It can be seen as a racket in many situations. Disturbing but a must-read.

Kudos

ClareR (5577 KP) rated The City of Brass: Daevabad Trilogy in Books

May 29, 2018

Djinn-tastic!! (OK, I know that's bad)

Wow! Magic, Djinns, Ifrits, Daevas - what's not to like?! This was such an engrossing read. Set from two points of view: Nahri, a poor orphaned healer and con-artist and Ali, the youngest son of the King of Daevabad. Their lives meet and are entwined in such a way as to be completely believable. The politics of the realm are much like apartheid, in that Shafit cannot mix with full-blooded Daevas or Djinn. They live in substandard conditions, and Ali tries to change that. He unwittingly causes huge problems.
This is the first in a trilogy, so my only complaint would be that I've now read the first one so close to the release date, that I'm now going to have to wait for AGES for the next part!! Bad planning on my part! I think I'd be more than happy to reread this before the second in the trilogy releases though.