This is the story of Giles Darby, a former British banker who was extradited and jailed on account of his entanglement in a $7m wire-fraud case. In 2001, Giles and his co-defendants -- branded the 'NatWest Three' -- became the subject of extensive media coverage when the US government demanded their extradition in regards to the financial collapse of energy giant Enron, noted as one of the biggest bankruptcy filings in history. They found themselves the centre of national debate which sought to question why three British citizens accused of defrauding a British bank should be tried in America -- a question that found itself in the hands of Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair. However, after 10 gruelling years of appeal, they each pled guilty to one count of wire fraud, facing up to 37 months in a US prison. Focusing on the emotional aftermath of extradition and his life in prison, Inside Allenwood is an eye-opening appraisal of the American justice system, and one man's profound story of how he managed to keep his health and sanity intact during the drudgery of lockdown, the dangers of routine violence and the agony of being separated from his young family in UK.

The acclaimed investigative reporter and author of Confronting Collapse examines the global forces that led to 9/11 in this provocative exposé. The attacks of September 11, 2001 were accomplished through an amazing orchestration of logistics and personnel. Crossing the Rubicon examines how such a conspiracy was possible through an interdisciplinary analysis of petroleum, geopolitics, narco-traffic, intelligence and militarism—without which 9/11 cannot be understood. In reality, 9/11 and the resulting "War on Terror" are parts of a massive authoritarian response to an emerging economic crisis of unprecedented scale. Peak Oil—the beginning of the end for our industrial civilization—is driving the elites of American power to implement unthinkably draconian measures of repression, warfare and population control. Crossing the Rubicon is more than a story of corruption and greed. It is a map of the perilous terrain through which we are all now making our way.

After visits to more than twenty institutions in the United States and Puerto Rico, including state, INS, and federal prisons as well as jails, Human Rights Watch concludes that the most troubling aspect of the human rights situation in U.S. prisons could be labelled Marionization. Thirty-six states have followed the example of the maximum security prison in Marion, Illinois, to create super maximum security institutions. The states have been quite creative in designing their own maxi-maxis and in making the conditions particularly difficult to bear, at times surpassing the original model.

I grew up in the Old Colony housing project in South Boston and became partners with James "Whitey" Bulger, who I always called Jimmy. Jimmy and I, we were unstoppable. We took what we wanted. And we made people disappear—permanently. We made millions. And if someone ratted us out, we killed him. We were not nice guys. I found out that Jimmy had been an FBI informant in 1999, and my life was never the same. When the feds finally got me, I was faced with something Jimmy would have killed me for—cooperating with the authorities. I pled guilty to twenty-nine counts, including five murders. I went away for five and a half years. I was brutally honest on the witness stand, and this book is brutally honest, too; the brutal truth that was never before told. How could it? Only three people could tell the true story. With one on the run and one in jail for life, it falls on me.

Controversial manifesto by acclaimed cultural theorist debated by leading writers Fredric Jameson’s pathbreaking essay “An American Utopia” radically questions standard leftist notions of what constitutes an emancipated society. Advocated here are—among other things—universal conscription, the full acknowledgment of envy and resentment as a fundamental challenge to any communist society, and the acceptance that the division between work and leisure cannot be overcome. To create a new world, we must first change the way we envision the world. Jameson’s text is ideally placed to trigger a debate on the alternatives to global capitalism. In addition to Jameson’s essay, the volume includes responses from philosophers and political and cultural analysts, as well as an epilogue from Jameson himself. Many will be appalled at what they will encounter in these pages—there will be blood! But perhaps one has to spill such (ideological) blood to give the Left a chance. Contributing are Kim Stanley Robinson, Jodi Dean, Saroj Giri, Agon Hamza, Kojin Karatani, Frank Ruda, Alberto Toscano, Kathi Weeks, and Slavoj Žižek.

For thirty years, Peter Singer's Practical Ethics has been the classic introduction to applied ethics. For this third edition, the author has revised and updated all the chapters and added a new chapter addressing climate change, one of the most important ethical challenges of our generation. Some of the questions discussed in this book concern our daily lives. Is it ethical to buy luxuries when others do not have enough to eat? Should we buy meat from intensively reared animals? Am I doing something wrong if my carbon footprint is above the global average? Other questions confront us as concerned citizens: equality and discrimination on the grounds of race or sex; abortion, the use of embryos for research and euthanasia; political violence and terrorism; and the preservation of our planet's environment. This book's lucid style and provocative arguments make it an ideal text for university courses and for anyone willing to think about how she or he ought to live.

The true account of the Nicholsons, the father and son who sold national secrets to Russia. “One of the strangest spy stories in American history” (Robert Lindsey, author of The Falcon and the Snowman). Investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bryan Denson tells the riveting story of the father and son co-conspirators who betrayed the United States. Jim Nicholson was one of the CIA’s top veteran case officers. By day, he taught spycraft at the CIA’s clandestine training center, The Farm. By night, he was a minivan-driving single father racing home to have dinner with his kids. But Nicholson led a double life. For more than two years, he had met covertly with agents of Russia’s foreign intelligence service and turned over troves of classified documents. In 1997, Nicholson became the highest-ranking CIA officer ever convicted of espionage. But his duplicity didn’t stop there. While behind the bars of a federal prison, the former mole systematically groomed the one person he trusted most to serve as his stand-in: his youngest son, Nathan. When asked to smuggle messages out of prison to Russian contacts, Nathan saw an opportunity to be heroic and to make his father proud. “Filled with fascinating details of the cloak-and-dagger techniques of KGB and CIA operatives, double agents, and spy catchers . . . A poignant and painful tale of family love, loyalty, manipulation and betrayal.” —The Oregonian

How propaganda undermines democracy and why we need to pay attention Our democracy today is fraught with political campaigns, lobbyists, liberal media, and Fox News commentators, all using language to influence the way we think and reason about public issues. Even so, many of us believe that propaganda and manipulation aren't problems for us—not in the way they were for the totalitarian societies of the mid-twentieth century. In How Propaganda Works, Jason Stanley demonstrates that more attention needs to be paid. He examines how propaganda operates subtly, how it undermines democracy—particularly the ideals of democratic deliberation and equality—and how it has damaged democracies of the past. Focusing on the shortcomings of liberal democratic states, Stanley provides a historically grounded introduction to democratic political theory as a window into the misuse of democratic vocabulary for propaganda's selfish purposes. He lays out historical examples, such as the restructuring of the US public school system at the turn of the twentieth century, to explore how the language of democracy is sometimes used to mask an undemocratic reality. Drawing from a range of sources, including feminist theory, critical race theory, epistemology, formal semantics, educational theory, and social and cognitive psychology, he explains how the manipulative and hypocritical declaration of flawed beliefs and ideologies arises from and perpetuates inequalities in society, such as the racial injustices that commonly occur in the United States. How Propaganda Works shows that an understanding of propaganda and its mechanisms is essential for the preservation and protection of liberal democracies everywhere.

From the bestselling author of The Day of the Jackal, international master of intrigue Frederick Forsyth, comes a thriller that brilliantly blends fact with fiction for one of this summer’s—or any season’s—most explosive reads! From the behind-the-scenes decision-making of the Allies to the secret meetings of Saddam Hussein’s war cabinet, from the brave American fliers running their dangerous missions over Iraq to the heroic young spy planted deep in the heart of Baghdad, Forsyth’s incomparable storytelling skill keeps the suspense at a breakneck pace. Somewhere in Baghdad is the mysterious “Jericho,” the traitor who is willing—for a price—to reveal what is going on in the high councils of the Iraqi dictator. But Saddam’s ultimate weapon has been kept secret even from his most trusted advisers, and the nightmare scenario that haunts General Schwarzkopf and his colleagues is suddenly imminent, unless somehow, the spy can locate that weapon—The Fist of God—in time. Peopled with vivid characters, brilliantly displaying Forsyth’s incomparable, knowledge of intelligence operations and tradecraft, moving back and forth between Washington and London, Baghdad and Kuwait, desert vastnesses and city bazaars, this breathtaking novel is an utterly convincing story of what may actually have happened behind the headlines.