Save Darfur! Saviors and Survivors: Darfur, Politics, and the War on Terror

From the author of the highly praised Good Muslim, Bad Muslim, here is the first analysis of the crisis in Darfur that considers the events of the last few years within the broad context of the history of Sudan, as well as examines the efficacy of the world’s response to the crisis. Incisive and authoritative, Saviors and Survivors will radically alter our understanding of the crisis in Darfur.

“An incisive and challenging analysis. Framing both Darfur’s war and the ‘Save Darfur’ movement within the paradigm of the West’s historic colonial encounter with Africa, Mahmood Mamdani challenges the reader to reconsider whether Darfur’s crisis is ‘genocide’ warranting foreign military intervention.”—Alex de Waal, Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and author of War in Darfur

“Mamdani traces the path to the Darfur tragedy through its historical and colonial roots to the current situation, where drought and desertification have led to conflict over land among local tribes, rebellion, and finally to the brutal involvement of the forces of the state and to the efforts of the United Nations and others to help the victims and stop the violence. His radical reevaluation of the Darfur problem is a major contribution to understanding and, it is to be hoped, to ending a shocking human disaster.” —Sir Brian Urquhart, former Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations

Indiana University’s Political Science Department has assigned the book for an African Politics course this fall 2010.

To read a book excerpt, click here.

To order an examination copy, click here.

Free Copy Offer to Educators: Be the First to Adopt The Enough Moment: Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes by John Prendergast with Don Cheadle

In their New York Times bestseller, Not On Our Watch, human rights activist John Prendergast and Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle focused the world’s attention on genocide in Sudan by offering readers strategies on how to take action to end the tragedies. Here now is their continued call to action: The Enough Moment : Fighting to End Africa’s Worst Human Rights Crimes (Three Rivers Press; September 2010), an empowering look at how people’s movements and inspired policies can stop genocide, child soldier recruitment, and rape as a war weapon in Africa. 

In The Enough Moment , Prendergast and Cheadle explain how hope, anger, citizen activism, social networking, compassion, celebrities, faith in action, and globalization are all coming together to produce the beginnings of a mass movement against human rights crimes.  

As Prendergast and Cheadle describe, an “Enough Moment” is defined as that time when outrage triggers action and bystanders become “Upstanders,” or people who take action on behalf of others. But can ordinary citizens turn their Enough Moments into instruments of meaningful change? Prendergast and Cheadle say “yes,” illustrating with such examples:

 • A high school student in Chicago started Youth United for Darfur to raise awareness of genocide.

• An eleven-year-old former child soldier in Uganda formed a group of others like him to aid in reconciliation.

• A seventy-eight-year-old retired educator in Seattle founded a coalition of churches and organizations to raise awareness and funds for humanitarian relief.

• A young Darfurian woman founded an association of women journalists that uses radios and phones to warn towns of militia groups in their area.

 In addition to providing action steps, Prendergast and Cheadle also connect with well-known and influential people to discuss how they have been moved to action by their Enough Moments. Interviews in The Enough Moment include:  Madeleine Albright, Dave Eggers, Mia Farrow, and a number of members of Congress.

For readers who hear their Enough Moment calling, and for those who are already involved in the people’s movement, The Enough Moment offers fourteen action steps for change, including contacting Congress, alerting the media, and using social media to organize, to help us become part of the solution. 

 Visit the website: http://www.enoughproject.org/

Educators: To request a FREE examination copy, click here and mention our blog.  Copies are limited.

In Pursuit of Elegance is the Common Summer Reader at Columbus College of Art & Design

Written in the tradition of The Tipping Point, Made to Stick, and The Black Swan, In Pursuit of Elegance will change the way you and your students think about the world. 

In this thought-provoking exploration of why certain events, products, and people capture our attention and imaginations, Matthew E. May examines the elusive element behind so many innovative breakthroughs in fields ranging from physics and marketing to design and popular culture. Combining unusual simplicity and surprising power, elegance is characterized by four key elements—seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a compelling, story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers surprising evidence that what’s “not there” often trumps what is.

The Columbus College of Art and Design’s Foundation Studies program has selected In Pursuit of Elegance for its Freshman Summer Reading for 2010. 

To read an excerpt, click here.

To order an examination copy, click here.

Students at Boston College and Western Oregon University are Reading The Translator by Zaghawa tribesman, Daoud Hari

In 2003, Daoud Hari, a Zaghawa tribesman in northern Darfur, fled his village, which was under attack by Sudanese militiamen. Here is Daoud’s harrowing and life-changing, eyewitness account of the brutal genocide in the Sudan.

Western Oregon University’s Anthropology Dept. will be using the book this summer as well as Boston College’s Sociology Dept which has adopted The Translator: A Memoir for its course named “African World Perspective” this Fall. Zine Magubane, Associate Professor of Sociology, says “I chose this book because The Translator offers American students a superb opportunity to hear about the realities of the Darfur situation through the voice of an African person. The book is both an excellent primer on the political situation in Darfur and a deeply moving personal story that gives students a sophisticated, yet accessible, view into the Darfur conflict.”

We are pleased to say The Translator is also a common reads book selection at Colorado Mountain College and Mars Hill College.

Official Website: www.SaveDarfur.org

For more information on the book and the author, click here.

To read a book excerpt, click here.

To order an examination copy, click here.

Another College Joins the List of Adoptions for Tracy Kidder’s Acclaimed Mountains Beyond Mountains

 Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, a perennial favorite book used in colleges and common reading programs, has recently been selected at Cornell University, along with more than 100 other colleges and high schools since its publication. This compelling and inspiring book shows how one person can work wonders. In Mountains Beyond Mountains, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tracy Kidder tells the true story of a gifted man, Dr. Paul Farmer, who loves the world and has set out to do all he can to cure it. “Mountains Beyond Mountains unfolds with a force of gathering revelation,” says Annie Dillard, and Jonathan Harr notes, “[Paul Farmer] wants to change the world. Certainly this luminous and powerful book will change the way you see it.”

“[A] masterpiece . . . an astonishing book that will leave you questioning your own life and political views . . . Kidder opens a window into Farmer’s soul, letting the reader peek in and see what truly makes the good doctor tick.”—USA Today

For a list of colleges that have selected Mountains Beyond Mountains, click here.

To read a book excerpt, click here.

Strength In What Remains is Tracy Kidder’s newest book.  To watch the book’s trailer, click here.

For more information on the book or author, click here.

Author Website: www.tracykidder.com/

Order an exam copy here.

Take Students to Great Heights! Make the Impossible Possible Selected as Common Reader at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Voorhees College, and Winthrop University

Bill Strickland’s Make the Impossible Possible: One Man’s Crusade to Inspire Others to Dream Bigger and Achieve the Extraordinary has been adopted for common reading at several colleges and universities, including Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Frank Phillips College, Voorhees College, and Winthrop University.  At IUP, the book was selected by a panel of faculty and staff.  To qualify for adoption in the program, a book must be relevant to today’s students, offer interdisciplinary appeal, and provide opportunities for additional and diverse programming.

To view the author’s presentation at the recent 2010 First-Year Experience conference please click here. Later this month Strickland will be conferred with honorary degrees from Babson College and Marywood University. A full listing of his honorary degrees can be found here.

From the ghetto to Harvard Business School, Make the Impossible Possible is Strickland’s personal story. It has been positively reviewed by many publications, including Publishers Weekly, which says: “It’s the American dream with a twist: for Strickland, it was never about shedding his past and getting ahead but about following his bliss and making a difference.”

Strickland is president and CEO, Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, and Bidwell Training Center.

Award-winning journalist María Hinojosa recently interviewed Bill Strickland. For video, click here.

For more information on the book or author, including an author video, click here.

To read a book excerpt, click here.

To order an examination copy, click here.

Caldwell College, Flagler University and Others Adopt Tracy Kidder’s Strength in What Remains for Its Fall Course

By the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, this book, now in paperback, recounts the story of Deo, a young man from war-torn Burundi, who endures homelessness before pursuing an education at Columbia University and going on to medical school.

“A tale of ethnocide, exile and healing by a master of narrative nonfiction. . . . Terrifying at turns, but tremendously inspiring. . . . a key document in the growing literature devoted to postgenocidal justice.” —Kirkus Reviews

Strength in What Remains is a required textbook for three classes, two on creative nonfiction and one on college research writing at Flagler University in Florida this Summer and Fall 2010. It has also been selected for Common Reading at Caldwell College, Penn State Berks, Stanford University, and University of Delaware.

Author Website: www.tracykidder.com

To download a FREE Teacher’s Guide, click here.

Click here to read an excerpt .

To order an examination copy, click here.

Professors, Get a FREE Copy of the Greatly Anticipated Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace

Professors: Be one of the first to adopt the book  Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself . Click here to request a free examination copy today.

This indelible portrait of David Foster Wallace, by turns funny and inspiring, is based on a five-day trip with award-winning writer David Lipsky during Wallace’s Infinite Jest tour. A biography in five days, Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself is David Foster Wallace as few experienced this great American writer. Told in his own words, here is Wallace’s own story, and his astonishing, humane, alert way of looking at the world; here are stories of being a young writer—of being young generally—trying to knit together your ideas of who you should be and who other people expect you to be, and of being young in March of 1996. And of what it was like to be with and—as he tells it—what it was like to become David Foster Wallace.

“Highly recommended. A glimpse into the mind of one of the great literary masters of the end of the 20th century…What shines through even more is his deep passion for writing and ideas and his kind, gentle nature…Many fans of Wallace’s writing come to think of him as a friend—by the time they have finished Lipsky’s moving book, they will undoubtedly feel that even more strongly.” — Library Journal

For NPR review, click here.

For more information on the book or author, click here.

Click here to read an excerpt.

Word of Mouth is Spreading On The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot, now Adopted at Several Colleges

In 1951, an African American woman named Henrietta Lacks, stricken with cervical cancer, became an involuntary donor of cells from her cancerous tumor, which were propagated by scientist George Otto Gey to create an immortal cell line for medical research. These cells are now known worldwide as HeLa. In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, award-winning science writer Rebecca Skloot brilliantly weaves together the Lacks’s story–past and present–with the story of the birth of bioethics, the story of HeLa cells, and the dark history of experimentation on African Americans. Important, powerful, and compassionate, this is a remarkable work of science and social journalism. 

Since its publication in February 2010, this amazing book has been already been selected for several 2010-2011 Common Reading programs, including Fairmont State University, Grand Valley State University, Honors College at University of Arizona, Johns Hopkins University, Keene State College, Loyola Marymount University (English Dept.), Marian University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Siena Heights University, St. Bonaventure College, Sweet Briar College, University of California, Merced, University of Kansas School of Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Big Reads, Virginia Commonwealth University, and is also being used in several classes at California State University Los Angeles, Fairmont State University, Henderson State University, Ohio University, Old Dominion University, Stockton College, University of Colorado-Boulder, and the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa.

“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is an ideal book for classroom discussions in bioethics, history of science, and science journalism. Author Rebecca Skloot does an exceptional job of raising critical issues that should encourage both scholars and students to reevaluate the research decision making process, the way research subjects are treated, and the balance of power in this country as determined by race, economics, and even education. An incredibly readable and smart text that should be a part of countless university discussions.” — Deborah Blum, author of The Poisoner’s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York, and Professor of Journalism, University of Wisconsin-Madison 

“This book not only describes the enormous contributions of Henrietta Lacks, her family and the many physicians and scientists to the history of science  –  it humanizes their contributions. In this way the public owes a debt to Rebecca Skloot for explaining science and its ethical issues in a way that should enlighten and inform. In my mind, she’s written the perfect bioethics book.”– Eric M. Meslin, Ph.D.  Director, Indiana University Center for Bioethics 

“Deftly weaving together history, journalism and biography, Rebecca Skloot’s sensitive account tells of the enduring, deeply personal sacrifice of this African American woman and her family…A stunning illustration of how race, gender and disease intersect to produce a unique form of social vulnerability, this is a poignant, necessary, and brilliant book.”—Alondra Nelson, associate professor of sociology, Columbia University 

Also visit the blog post by Case Western professor, Jacqueline D. Lipton, Professor; Associate Dean for Faculty Development and Research; Co-Director of the Center for Law Technology and the Arts; Associate Director of the Frederick K. Cox International Law Center. Click here. 

For a review in Health Affairs Journal, click here.

For Booklist’s Story Behind the Story: Rebecca Skloot’s Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, click here.

Author website: www.rebeccaskloot.com

For more information on the book or author, click here.

Click here to read an excerpt.

Click here to order an examination copy.

Switch to Switch by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

This just in!  Whitworth University in Washington has selected Switch by Chip and Dan Heath for their Introductory Psychology course this Fall 2010.  From the authors of the acclaimed Made to Stick, Switch combines theory and case studies from Psychology, Sociology, and Business Management, to shed new light on how we can effect transformative change. Switch shows that successful changes follow a pattern—one we can use to make the changes that matter most to us. 

Here’s what Professor Peter Lorenzi has to say about Switch:

“Switch offers practical leadership lessons to direct the rider, to motivate the elephant, and to shape the path in all of us, to effect social change. Blending a solid basis of academic research and common sense successes, Heath and Heath provide an interesting and instructive manual for moving mountains by understanding the importance of mole hills.”–Peter Lorenzi, Professor, Loyola University Maryland (Executive MBA Students will be reading Switch) 

CHIP HEATH is a professor of organizational behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. DAN HEATH, a former researcher at Harvard Business School, is now a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE Center, which supports social entrepreneurs.

Click here to read an excerpt.

For a limited time, we are offering a FREE review copy to professors. Simply email us and mention this blog.

Visit the authors’ websites at: www.madetostick.com or www.madetostick.com/blog/