Little is known about the Tamil liberation cause and struggle, as it has been widely dismissed by global powers of all persuasions-the USA, Russia, China and India-each driven by their own realpolitik concerns and self- interests. This book, written by a Diaspora Tamil engaged in human rights work in the Tamil-controlled area of Vanni up until it was overrun by Sri Lankan forces, provides a compelling insider’s look at the motivations, issues and complexities of this largely secret civil war; the entire text is based on first hand observation and includes sociological insights based on these first hand observations. Isolatd in their struggle and condemned by world opinion, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) nonetheless proved capable of withstanding all external forces for a period of decades, drawing large numbers of Tamils, both inside Sri Lanka and outside in the Tamil Diaspora, to support tits cause. The LTTE created a progressive internal movement that succeeded in breaking down ancient caste barriers that had resisted the political inducements and leadership of figures such as Gandhi, and inculcated a climate of social justice and equality. This book describes what life was like on the ground inside Tamil- controlled territory where the forces of war were held at bay-what the author has referred to in the title of this book as "The Fleeting Moment...". What followed was a process of the destruction of everything that she described when it was overrun by the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil genocide began.

Four gorgeous brothers, one small town, and the women who drive them wild.Presley McDaniel lives her life from moment to moment.Making permanent decisions means obligation, and that would force her to stop being the family disappointment. Waitress, fitness instructor, dog walker ... you name the hourly job and she's probably held the position.But when her grandmother can no longer run her book shop in Fawn Hill, a town so small it barely has its own zip code, Presley steps up to help.The move from bustling city to green pastures may be exactly what she needs to sort out her life. But she didn't ask for that happy ending to include a gorgeous veterinarian with an all-American smile and a penchant for snuggling puppies. The good doctor is reliable, responsible, and just the kind of man Presley has always avoided.Love and commitment are predictable.So why, the moment she lays eyes on him, are they all she wants?Keaton Nash has never questioned his steady path.His brothers may tease him about settling into his father's passed-down role of small town veterinarian, but Keaton has never minded his rural roots. And after tragedy struck two years ago, he has a duty as the eldest Nash man to look after his family.What he doesn't need is the sexy, flighty stranger who shows up in town and gets his broken heart beating again. Presley McDaniel is a distraction, a red-headed temptation that is the definition of a bad idea.He's barely recovered from the love who left him to chase bigger dreams, and this woman is bound to do the same.Except for the first time ever, he wants to abandon stability.She makes him want to be reckless.

A forensic look at the Lucky Country, from the inside and outside. Never before has Australia enjoyed such economic, commercial, diplomatic and cultural clout. Its recession-proof economy is the envy of the world. It's the planet's great lifestyle superpower. Its artistic exports win unprecedented acclaim. But never before has its politics been so brutal, narrow and facile, as well as being such a global laughing stock. A positive national story is at odds with a deeply unattractive Canberra story. The country should be enjoying The Australian Moment, so vividly described by the best-selling author George Megalogenis. But that description may turn out to be inadvertently precise. It could end up being just that: a fleeting moment. At present the country seems to be in speedy regression, with the nation's leaders, on both sides, mired in relatively small problems, such as the arrival of boat people, rather than mapping out a larger and more inspiring national future. In The Rise and Fall of Australia, BBC correspondent and author Nick Bryant offers an outsider's take on the great paradox of modern-day Australian life: of how the country has got richer at a time when its politics have become more impoverished. In this thoroughly entertaining and thought-provoking book, dealing with politics, racism, sexism, the country's place in the region and the world, culture and sport, the author argues that Australia needs to discard the out-dated language used to describe itself, to push back against Lucky Country thinking, to celebrate how the cultural creep has replaced the cultural cringe and to stop negatively typecasting itself. Rejecting most of the national stereotypes, Nick Bryant sets out to describe the new Australia rather than the mythic country so often misunderstood not just by foreigners but Australians themselves.

Soon to be a streaming series ● In this dazzling work of history, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author follows Benjamin Franklin to France for the crowning achievement of his career In December of 1776 a small boat delivered an old man to France." So begins an enthralling narrative account of how Benjamin Franklin--seventy years old, without any diplomatic training, and possessed of the most rudimentary French--convinced France, an absolute monarchy, to underwrite America's experiment in democracy. When Franklin stepped onto French soil, he well understood he was embarking on the greatest gamble of his career. By virtue of fame, charisma, and ingenuity, Franklin outmaneuvered British spies, French informers, and hostile colleagues; engineered the Franco-American alliance of 1778; and helped to negotiate the peace of 1783. The eight-year French mission stands not only as Franklin's most vital service to his country but as the most revealing of the man. In A Great Improvisation, Stacy Schiff draws from new and little-known sources to illuminate the least-explored part of Franklin's life. Here is an unfamiliar, unforgettable chapter of the Revolution, a rousing tale of American infighting, and the treacherous backroom dealings at Versailles that would propel George Washington from near decimation at Valley Forge to victory at Yorktown. From these pages emerge a particularly human and yet fiercely determined Founding Father, as well as a profound sense of how fragile, improvisational, and international was our country's bid for independence.

A couple trying to conceive A teenage boy crushing on his teacher's niece A man with a plan to kill himself A forgotten love story A son remembering his father A girl having nightmares A brother strives to fulfill his sister's wish Which one would you read first?

It is most fitting that Northwestern University Press, long a leading publisher of Russian literature in translation, launches the Northwestern World Classics series with a new translation of Russia's greatest poet. Included are many famous poems well known to, and often memorized by, every educated Russian, as well as lighter, more occasional pieces. Renowned translator James Falen’s collection of 167 of Pushkin’s lyrics is arranged chronologically, beginning with verse written in the poet’s teenage years—Pushkin published his first poem at fifteen and was widely revered by his later teens—and closing with lines composed shortly before his death. As a whole, these selections reveal Pushkin's development as a poet, but they also capture the wide range of subjects and styles in Pushkin’s poetry.

A novel which challenges us to imagine the world-order in 2040. What if China dramatically reinvents global relations.Imagine the near future when the East assumes the reins of power in world politics, as well as global leadership in economic matters! On May 1, 2040 the headquarters of the United Nations moves from New York to Shanghai.The novel centers around Wei Shu, the woman President of the People`s Republic of China. She has piloted this project and choreographed every detail of this momentous event. In her diary, Wei Shu writes: `This day belongs to me as now I belong to China and China belongs to the world.``Who is this woman who has successfully ascended to absolute leadership both in China and the world...Jean-Louis Roy`s novel unravels Wei Shu`s origins, the legacy of her mother and grandmother, her career as a student and her ascent to power in China. He explores the relentless development of China over the past fifty years, its emergence as a global power in parallel with the dazzling trajectory of the rise to preeminence of this exceptional woman, Wei Shu.Jean &– Louis Roy for decades has written extensively about the shift of power from the west towards Africa and Asia. His most recent publications include The Future of French: Cultural Competition in the 21st Century (2010), The Age of Diversity: The New Cultural Map ( 2016), Mansa Musai: Kankan Moussa: From Niani to Mecca &– An Historical Narrative (2019), Africa.com: Digital, Economic, Cultural Transformations (2021) all published by Mosaic Press. For over fifteen years, Jean-Louis Roy has visited China personally, observed and studied its developments. This novel, his first, combines numerous themes and his acute combination as a trained journalist, professor and literary figure all combine to make Shanghai 2040 a highly valuable literary work and perhaps, also a prophetic work.Jean-Louis Roy`s career includes Editor in Chief of Le Devoir, Quebec`s Delegate General in P

From prehistoric stone tools, to machines, to computers, things have traveled a long road along with human beings. Changing with the times, places, and methods of their production, emerging from diverse histories, and enveloped in multiple layers of meaning, things embody ideas, emotions, and symbols of which we are often unaware. The meaning of “thing” is richer than that of “object,” which is something that is manipulated with indifference or according to impersonal technical procedures. Things also differ from merchandise, objects that can be sold or exchanged or seen as status symbols. Things, in the philosophical sense, are nodes of relationships with the life of others, chains of continuity among generations, bridges that connect individual and collective histories, junctions between human civilizations and nature. Things incite us to listen to reality, to make them part of ourselves, giving fresh life to an otherwise suffocating interiority. Things also reveal the hidden aspect of a “subject” in its most secret and least explored side. Things are the repositories of ideas, emotions, and symbols whose meaning we often do not understand. In an unexpected but coherent journey that includes the visions of classic philosophers from Aristotle to Husserl and from Hegel to Heidegger, along with the analysis of works of art, Bodei addresses issues such as fetishism, the memory of things, the emergence of department stores, consumerism, nostalgia for the past, the self-portraits of Rembrandt and Dutch still-lifes of the seventeenth century. The more we are able to recover objects in their wealth of meanings and integrate them into our mental and emotional horizons, he argues, the broader and deeper our world becomes.

Mani Shankar Aiyar Looks Back To The Changes That Have Taken Place During The &Lsquo;Time Of Transition&Rsquo; &Mdash;The Two Decades Since Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi Left Office After The Lok Sabha Elections Of November 1989. Rajiv Gandhi Was The Fourth Prime Minister Of India In Four Decades Of Independence, But The Last Twenty Years Have Seen As Many As Eight Prime Ministers And Several More Governments. Accompanying The Change From Single-Party Governance To The Instability Of Coalition Politics Are Major Transformations In The Pace, Trajectory And Even The Goals Of Nation-Building. It Is These Contentious Transitions That Are Reflected In The Five Major Themes Of This Volume: Democracy, Secularism, Socialism, Nonalignment, And Neighbourhood Policy. Mani Shankar Aiyar Was Both A Witness To, And A Reluctant Participant In, These Processes Of Change: As Joint Secretary In Rajiv Gandhi&Rsquo;S Prime Minister&Rsquo;S Office, As An Mp Since 1991, And Today As A Cabinet Minister In The United Progressive Alliance Government. His Columns For The Indian Express Are Analytical And Vivid Commentaries On Their Times, Written In The Author&Rsquo;S Inimitable Style. This Collection Sheds Light On A Critically Significant Era In Contemporary India.