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Recommendations based on Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwandaby Roméo Dallaire
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Long Walk to Freedom
by Nelson Mandela
A remarkable story of courage, perseverance and hope in the face of oppression.
Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel ... (Goodreads)
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies
by Jared Diamond
Tracing the origins of human civilizations through the lens of geography, technology, and biology.
"Diamond has written a book of remarkable scope ... one of the most important and readable works on the human past published in recent years." Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a national bestseller: ... (Goodreads)
We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
by Philip Gourevitch
True story of the 1994 Rwandan genocide and its aftermath, told through the eyes of survivors.
In April of 1994, the government of Rwanda called on everyone in the Hutu majority to kill everyone in the Tutsi minority. Over the next three months, 800,000 Tutsis were murdered in the most ... (Goodreads)
King Leopold's Ghost
by Adam Hochschild
A harrowing account of the colonization of the Congo and the exploitation of its people.
In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a ... (Goodreads)
The Prince
by Niccolò Machiavelli
A timeless political treatise on the art of acquiring and maintaining power.
Machiavelli needs to be looked at as he really was. Hence: Can Machiavelli, who makes the following observations, be Machiavellian as we understand the disparaging term? 1. So it is that to know the ... (Goodreads)
Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart
by Tim Butcher
An exploration of the Congo River, tracing its past and present history.
A compulsively readable account of a journey to the Congo — a country virtually inaccessible to the outside world — vividly told by a daring and adventurous journalist. Ever since Stanley first ... (Goodreads)
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
by Simon Sebag Montefiore
A biography of Joseph Stalin, exploring his rise to power and the inner workings of his regime.
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781400076789 This widely acclaimed biography provides a vivid and riveting account of Stalin and his courtiers—killers, fanatics, women, and children—during the ... (Goodreads)
Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
by Art Spiegelman
A graphic novel recounting a Holocaust survivor's harrowing experience and his son's attempt to reconcile with his father's past.
Acclaimed as a quiet triumph and a brutally moving work of art, the first volume of Art Spieglman's Maus introduced readers to Vladek Spiegleman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a ... (Goodreads)
A Short History of Nearly Everything
by Bill Bryson
A captivating overview of the natural sciences, spanning the history of the universe.
In Bryson's biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory ... (Goodreads)
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens
Criticism of organized religion, arguing it is the root of much suffering in the world.
With his unique brand of erudition and wit, Hitchens describes the ways in which religion is man-made. "God did not make us," he says. "We made God." He explains the ways in which religion is ... (Goodreads)
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
by Ishmael Beah
A gripping tale of a child soldier's journey to survive and reclaim his humanity.
My new friends have begun to suspect I haven't told them the full story of my life.,"Why did you leave Sierra Leone?","Because there is a war.","You mean, you saw people running around with guns and ... (Barnes & Noble)
A Rumor of War
by Philip Caputo
A firsthand account of the Vietnam War by a Marine, recounting its devastating impact on his life.
The 40th-anniversary edition of the classic Vietnam memoir—featured in the PBS documentary series The Vietnam War by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick—with a new foreword by Kevin Powers. In March of 1965, ... (Goodreads)
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History
by Art Spiegelman
A graphic novel depicting the traumatic experiences of a Holocaust survivor and his son.
The first installment of the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first ... (Goodreads)
Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town
by Paul Theroux
An exploration of Africa, from the ancient wonders of the Nile to the modern marvels of the Cape.
In Dark Star Safari the wittily observant and endearingly irascible Paul Theroux takes readers the length of Africa by rattletrap bus, dugout canoe, cattle truck, armed convoy, ferry, and train. In ... (Goodreads)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
by Dee Brown
An in-depth account of the displacement of Native American tribes by the US government.
Now a special 30th-anniversary edition in both hardcover and paperback, the classic bestselling history The New York Times called "Original, remarkable, and finally heartbreaking...Impossible to put ... (Goodreads)
On War
by Carl von Clausewitz
A comprehensive analysis of the nature and principles of war, including its political and social aspects.
Carl von Clausewitz's On War has been called, "not simply the greatest, but the only truly great book on war." It is an extraordinary attempt to construct an all-embracing theory of how war works. ... (Goodreads)
The Art of War
by Sun Tzu
Ancient Chinese military treatise outlining strategies for success in battle.
Twenty-Five Hundred years ago, Sun Tzu wrote this classic book of military strategy based on Chinese warfare and military thought. Since that time, all levels of military have used the teaching on ... (Goodreads)
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood
by Alexandra Fuller
An autobiographical account of a white family in Rhodesia, struggling to survive in a war-torn land.
Alexandra Fuller's book tells the story of her family of white Zimbabwean tenant farmers in the years before and after Independence. These are not the wealthy landowners demonised by the present ... (Wikipedia)
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
by Edward S. Herman
Critique of mass media and its role in shaping public opinion.
In this pathbreaking work, Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky show that, contrary to the usual image of the news media as cantankerous, obstinate, and ubiquitous in their search for truth and defense ... (Goodreads)
The Death and Life of Great American Cities
by Jane Jacobs
Exposes the flaws of urban planning, advocating for a more organic approach.
A direct and fundamentally optimistic indictment of the short-sightedness and intellectual arrogance that has characterized much of urban planning in this century, The Death and Life of Great ... (Goodreads)
The Selfish Gene
by Richard Dawkins
A study of evolutionary biology, exploring how genes act and how they impact behavior.
Inheriting the mantle of revolutionary biologist from Darwin, Watson, and Crick, Richard Dawkins forced an enormous change in the way we see ourselves and the world with the publication of The ... (Goodreads)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
by Malcolm X
A gripping account of one man's transformation from criminal to civil rights leader.
Alternate cover for ISBN 9780345350688 Through a life of passion and struggle, Malcolm X became one of the most influential figures of the 20th Century. In this riveting account, he tells of his ... (Goodreads)
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly
by Anthony Bourdain
A humorous and unflinching account of life in restaurant kitchens, exploring the culture and camaraderie of the culinary world.
A deliciously funny, delectably shocking banquet of wild-but-true tales of life in the culinary trade from Chef Anthony Bourdain, laying out his more than a quarter-century of drugs, sex, and haute ... (Goodreads)
The Places in Between
by Rory Stewart
A pilgrimage across Afghanistan, uncovering the country's forgotten history.
Stewart arrives in Afghanistan in January 2002, beginning his journey in Herat and proceeding on foot to Kabul . He is initially accompanied by two armed guards, Qasim and Abdul Haq, at the ... (Wikipedia)
All the President's Men
by Carl Bernstein
Investigative journalism that uncovered the Watergate scandal and its aftermath.
The full account of the Watergate scandal from the two Washington Post reporters who broke the story. This is “the work that brought down a presidency— perhaps the most influential piece of ... (Goodreads)
Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
by James D. Bradley
The story of nine American airmen shot down over Chichi Jima during World War II and their brutal treatment by the Japanese.
Over the remote Pacific island of Chichi Jima, nine American flyers-Navy and Marine pilots sent to bomb Japanese communications towers there-were shot down., Flyboys, a story of war and horror but ... (Goodreads)
Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything
by Joshua Foer
An exploration of the science of memory and its potential to unlock hidden abilities in the human mind.
The blockbuster phenomenon that charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory An instant bestseller that is poised to become a classic, Moonwalking with Einstein ... (Goodreads)
The Shadow of the Sun
by Ryszard Kapuściński
An epic account of a journey through Africa, navigating the continent's diverse cultures and politics.
In 1957, Ryszard Kapuscinski arrived in Africa to witness the beginning of the end of colonial rule as the first African correspondent of Poland's state newspaper. From the early days of independence ... (Goodreads)
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War
by Mark Bowden
A detailed account of the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, where US soldiers fought Somali militia in a brutal urban warfare.
On October 3, 1993, about a hundred U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into a teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia, to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord. The action ... (Goodreads)
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
An exploration of the two systems of the mind, and how they influence decision-making.
In the highly anticipated Thinking, Fast and Slow , Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and ... (Goodreads)
