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.

Anatomy of an Epidemic Selected at Saint Michael’s College for Abnormal Psychology course

In Anatomy of an Epidemic award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates, in the first book of its kind, the merits of psychiatric medications through the prism of long-term results, asking the question: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades?

During the past fifty years, when investigators looked at how psychiatric drugs affected long-term outcomes, studies on various psychiatric drugs—including those used to treat depression, bipolar disorder and ADHD—have consistently found that these medications, for some paradoxical reason, increase the likelihood that people will become chronically ill, less able to function well, more prone to physical illness.

Having given this shocking analysis of these findings, Whitaker then asks why the results from these long-term studies been kept from the public? He concludes with personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic, and reports on innovative programs of psychiatric care in Europe and the United States that are producing good long-term outcomes.

St. Michael’s College’s Psychology Dept. has chosen it for course use in Abnormal Psychology this Fall.

“Why are so many more people disabled by mental illness than ever before?  Why are those so diagnosed dying 10-25 years earlier than others?  In Anatomy of an Epidemic investigative reporter Robert Whitaker cuts through flawed science, greed and outright lies to reveal that the drugs hailed as the cure for mental disorders instead worsen them over the long term.  But Whitaker’s investigation also offers hope for the future: solid science backs nature’s way of healing our mental ills through time and human relationships.  Whitaker tenderly interviews children and adults who bear witness to the ravages of mental illness, and testify to their newly found “aliveness” when freed from the prison of mind-numbing drugs.”—Daniel Dorman, M.D., Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine and author of Dante’s Cure: A Journey Out of Madness

“This is the most alarming book I’ve read in years.  The approach is neither polemical nor ideologically slanted. Relying on medical evidence and historical documentation, Whitaker builds his case like a prosecuting attorney.”—Carl Elliott, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Center for Bioethics, University of Minnesota and author of Better than Well: American Medicine Meets the American Dream

To read an 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.

Outcasts United Joins Another College’s Fall Curriculum

Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town  is the story of a refugee soccer team, a remarkable woman coach and a small southern town in Clarkston, Georgia, turned upside down by the process of refugee resettlement.

Beloit College’s Writing Program has selected the book for its Fall 2009 course on The Long Horizon: Refugees in the United States and the University of Hartford’s Politics & Government Dept. is using it for their Globalization of People course.  Outcasts United: A Refugee Team, An American Town  is also a popular common reading selection at several colleges. For a complete list, click here.

“Truly unforgettable, Outcasts United offers a stirring lesson in the power of a single person to transform the lives of many. It’s an incisive window into the world ahead for all of us, where cultural diversity won’t be an ideal or a course requirement or a corporate initiative but a fact of life that has to be wrestled with and reconciled, if never quite resolved.”
—Reza Aslan, author of No God but God

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

To read an excerpt, click here.

For Official Website, click here.

Order an examination copy 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.

University of Michigan Students are Reading The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How

In The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How, bestselling author Daniel Coyle reveals the simple yet powerful mechanisms through which human beings acquire skill–the kinds of practice, motivation, and coaching that grow myelin, a substance in our brains–the fastest. Through visits to the world’s best soccer players, bank robbers, violinists, fighter pilots, artists, and skateboarders, and to the labs where myelin is being investigated. This compelling and instructive book will transform the way we view talent and enable all of us to develop our full potential and is recommended for courses on education, business, psychology, and sociology. 

This Fall 2010, University of Michigan’s Principles of Macroeconomics course will be using The Talent Code.

“This book is not only quite convincing about the role of hard work in gaining skills, but gives insight into the ‘type’ of hard work that pays off. In line with the experimental evidence for educational gains from convincing students that diligent study can rewire the brain, I am assigning the book as a recommended reading to improve the performance of my college students in a class covering unrelated topics. In other words, I view this as a book for ‘learning how to learn.’” –Miles Kimball, Professor of Economics, University of Michigan 

Click here to read an excerpt.

To order an examination copy, click here.