Lucian “Lucky” Spark has been recruited for training by the Establishment, a totalitarian government. If a recruit fails any level of the violent training competitions, a family member is brutally killed ... and the recruit must choose which one. An undeniable attraction develops between Lucky and another recruit, but only one of them can survive.

Culling the Masses questions the widely held view that in the long run democracy and racism cannot coexist. David Scott FitzGerald and David Cook-Martín show that democracies were the first countries in the Americas to select immigrants by race, and undemocratic states the first to outlaw discrimination. Through analysis of legal records from twenty-two countries between 1790 and 2010, the authors present a history of the rise and fall of racial selection in the Western Hemisphere. The United States led the way in using legal means to exclude “inferior” ethnic groups. Starting in 1790, Congress began passing nationality and immigration laws that prevented Africans and Asians from becoming citizens, on the grounds that they were inherently incapable of self-government. Similar policies were soon adopted by the self-governing colonies and dominions of the British Empire, eventually spreading across Latin America as well. Undemocratic regimes in Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Cuba reversed their discriminatory laws in the 1930s and 1940s, decades ahead of the United States and Canada. The conventional claim that racism and democracy are antithetical—because democracy depends on ideals of equality and fairness, which are incompatible with the notion of racial inferiority—cannot explain why liberal democracies were leaders in promoting racist policies and laggards in eliminating them. Ultimately, the authors argue, the changed racial geopolitics of World War II and the Cold War was necessary to convince North American countries to reform their immigration and citizenship laws.

The world is thrown into a frenzy when an experimental virus is accidentally released. Highly contagious, its victims suffer a fate worse than death. Bodies ravaged by fever, their numbers increase at a startling rate as they mindlessly roam the streets infecting all with whom they come into contact until their inevitable and swift deaths. Frankie, a businesswoman with a young family, and Henry, a bachelor well on his way to becoming a grumpy old man, find themselves caught in the fallout. Terror the new way of life, each struggle to survive as society crumbles around them. Hundreds of miles away from one another, they find themselves on a journey to Los Alamos, New Mexico with hopes of finding a cure that, unbeknownst to them, resides within their veins.

New technologies have opened up fresh possibilities for public diplomacy, but this has not erased the importance of history. On the contrary, the lessons of the past seem more relevant than ever, in an age in which communications play an unprecedented role. Whether communications are electronic or hand-delivered, the foundations remain as valid today as they ever have been. Blending history with insights from international relations, communication studies, psychology, and contemporary practice, Cull explores the five core areas of public diplomacy: listening, advocacy, cultural diplomacy, exchanges, and international broadcasting. He unpacks the approaches which have dominated in recent years – nation-branding and partnership – and sets out the foundations for successful global public engagement. Rich with case studies and examples drawn from ancient times through to our own digital age, the book shows the true capabilities and limits of emerging platforms and technologies, as well as drawing on lessons from the past which can empower us and help us to shape the future. This comprehensive and accessible introduction is essential reading for students, scholars, and practitioners, as well as anyone interested in understanding or mobilizing global public opinion.

Experts report on the latest research on extending access to financial services to the 2.5 billion adults around the world who lack it. About 2.5 billion adults, just over half the world's adult population, lack bank accounts. If we are to realize the goal of extending banking and other financial services to this vast “unbanked” population, we need to consider not only such product innovations as microfinance and mobile banking but also issues of data accuracy, impact assessment, risk mitigation, technology adaptation, financial literacy, and local context. In Banking the World, experts take up these topics, reporting on new research that will guide both policy makers and scholars in a broader push to extend financial markets. The contributors consider such topics as the complexity of surveying people about their use of financial services; evidence of the impact of financial services on income; the occasional negative effects of financial services on poor households, including disincentives to work and overindebtedness; and tools for improving access such as nontraditional credit scores, financial incentives for banking, and identification technologies that can dramatically reduce loan default rates.

150 years after a virus wipes out most of the world's population, Reagan Scott finds herself chosen for the State of the Union's fifth Culling. She will compete against 49 of the country's brightest girls. And then, of course, there are the 50 boys. Though the government truly means well, not everything is as it seems. She will be tested to the fullest extent while an evil storm brews.With eliminations happening frequently, how far can she make it? And if she makes it far enough to meet the boys, how can she be expected to, at just 18 years of age, find a partner...for life? Does she have what it takes to be the next Madam President?

Have you ever been cut off in traffic? Or stepped in something that a dog owner has neglected to pick up? Or held a door open for someone, only to have them to breeze by you without so much as a nod of thanks? What if you could vaporise those responsible so that it was as if they had never existed? Human Cull imagines just that. People from all over the planet have sent in their cull suggestions for a little green alien to remove the really annoying people and leave the world a better place for the rest of us. Don't get mad - cull them!

Using newly declassified archives and interviews with practitioners, Nicholas J. Cull has pieced together the story of the final decade in the life of the United States Information Agency, revealing the decisions and actions that brought the United States' apparatus for public diplomacy into disarray.