The Danger of Celebrity in Power: The Case of Liberia takes you on an engaging journey that dissects the rise of celebrities to political power and unravels the implications of their imposing rule, sometimes to the detriment of democracy’s growth and development. In particular, the book delves into the small West African nation of Liberia as an embryonic and fragile democracy with many years of social, economic, and political decadence. There, to the shock of the world, a footballer, George Oppong Manneh Weah, was elected president in 2017. My intent is not to cast doom but to realistically unearth the dangerous effects that are rapidly emerging in Liberia since the footballer assumed power. The visible indicators of what is to come are extensively discussed in this book. It is absolutely prudent to underscore that mediocrity has taken over Liberia with the election of a football star, whose entire background is completely unrelated to the functions of the presidency. President Weah has no credible corporate or political leadership experience; thus he lacks the background and savoir-faire to lead Liberia out of its current fragility and degradation onto a trajectory of sustainable peace and stability. In less than twelve months into his leadership, the president has grossly and repeatedly violated the laws of Liberia, demonstrated intolerance toward the opposition, and continuously threatened advocates (i.e., critical voices), portending the emergence of tyranny. President Weah has called the opposition “enemies of the state”; said to the Liberian people, “I cannot fight corruption because everyone is related”; and said to the BBC stringer in Liberia, Jonathan Paye-Layleh, “You were one of those against me when I was advocating for peace.” Certainly, these statements are worrisome; coming from the heart of a rookie president, overwhelmingly elected with 61.5 percent of the total valid votes cast, in less than twelve months. The implications of such tyrannical moves are enormous and must not be discounted. Obviously, these are scary times, which reflect a looming danger. The trend cannot continue unabated.

Time magazine named Bono and Bill and Melinda Gates their "Persons of the Year." The United Nations tapped Angelina Jolie as a goodwill ambassador. Bob Geldof organized the Live8 concert to push the G8 leaders' summit on AIDS and debt relief. What has come to be called "celebrity diplomacy" attracts wide media attention, significant money, and top official access around the world. But is this phenomenon just the latest fad? Are celebrities dabbling in an arena that is out of their depth, or are they bringing justified notice to important problems that might otherwise languish on the crowded international diplomatic scene? This book is the first to examine celebrity diplomacy as a serious global project with important implications, both positive and negative. Intended for readers who might not normally read about celebrities, it will also attract audiences often turned off by international affairs. Celebrities bring optimism and "buzz" to issues that seem deep and gloomy. Even if their lofty goals remain elusive, when celebrities speak, other actors in the global system listen.

Campaigner, insurgent, fugitive, rebel commander, commodity kingpin, elected president, exile and finally prisoner, Charles Taylor sought to lead his country to change but instead ignited a conflict which destroyed Liberia in over a decade of violence, greed and personal ambition. Taylor's takeover threw much of the neigbouring region into turmoil, until he was finally brought to face justice in The Hague for his role in Sierra Leone's civil war. In this remarkable and eye-opening book, Colin Waugh draws on a variety of sources, testimonies and original interviews - including with Taylor himself - to recount the story of what really happened during these turbulent years. In doing so, he examines both the life of Charles Taylor, as well as the often self-interested efforts of the international community to first save Liberia from disaster, then, having failed to do so, to bring to justice the man it deems most to blame for its disintegration.

Liberia's Deadest Ends is a novel based on fact. It is about trust and truth: what or whom to trust, and when. Truth in Liberia during the civil war had become distorted, embellished, abandoned, and abused out of bravado, fear, shame, or self-protection. No one seemed to know the difference between truth and rumor anymore. The novel is set in Liberia from 2004 to 2012, after the declaration of peace and the end of two protracted and bloody civil wars: December 1989-1997 and 1999-2003. The country is recovering economically and mentally through government stabilization and services; recording Truth and Reconciliation statements of human rights violations; and the criminal trial of former president, Charles Taylor. Jorja Himmermann, an international aid worker, monitors the resurgence of education programs, peace building, community development, child labor, and the protection of former child soldiers. As the country's past truths are revealed, Jorja seeks her own truths: of elusive pygmy hippos; the burns on her driver's body; the extradition of her British friend; and her relationship with an enigmatic Moroccan journalist. It reveals whom Jorja can really trust.

An ambitious and shocking exposé of America’s hidden empire in Liberia, run by the storied Firestone corporation, and its long shadow In the early 1920s, Americans owned 80 percent of the world’s automobiles and consumed 75 percent of the world’s rubber. But only one percent of the world’s rubber grew under the U.S. flag, creating a bottleneck that hampered the nation’s explosive economic expansion. To solve its conundrum, the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company turned to a tiny West African nation, Liberia, founded in 1847 as a free Black republic. Empire of Rubber tells a sweeping story of capitalism, racial exploitation, and environmental devastation, as Firestone transformed Liberia into America’s rubber empire. Historian and filmmaker Gregg Mitman scoured remote archives to unearth a history of promises unfulfilled for the vast numbers of Liberians who toiled on rubber plantations built on taken land. Mitman reveals a history of racial segregation and medical experimentation that reflected Jim Crow America—on African soil. As Firestone reaped fortunes, wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few elites, fostering widespread inequalities that fed unrest, rebellions and, eventually, civil war. A riveting narrative of ecology and disease, of commerce and science, and of racial politics and political maneuvering, Empire of Rubber uncovers the hidden story of a corporate empire whose tentacles reach into the present.

The second edition of the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy, co-edited by two leading scholars in the international relations subfield of public diplomacy, includes 16 more chapters from the first. Ten years later, a new global landscape of public diplomacy has taken shape, with major programs in graduate-level public diplomacy studies worldwide. What separates this handbook from others is its legacy and continuity from the first edition. This first edition line-up was more military-focused than this edition, a nod to the work of Philip M. Taylor, to whom this updated edition is dedicated. This edition includes US content, but all case studies are outside the United States, not only to appeal to a global audience of scholars and practitioners, but also as a way of offering something fresher than the US/UK-centric competition. In Parts 1–4, original contributors are retained, many with revised editions, but new faces emerge. Parts 5 and 6 include 16 global case studies in public diplomacy, expanding the number of contributors by ten. The concluding part of the book includes chapters on digital and corporate public diplomacy, and a signature final chapter on the noosphere and noopolitik as they relate to public diplomacy. Designed for a broad audience, the Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy is encyclopedic in its range and depth of content, yet is written in an accessible style that will appeal to both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

How can "Speaking Rights to Power" construct political will to respond to human rights abuse worldwide? Examining dozens of cases of human rights campaigns and using an innovative analysis of the politics of persuasion, this book shows how communication politics build recognition, solidarity, and social change. Building on twenty years of research on five continents, this comprehensive study ranges from Aung San Suu Kyi to Anna Hazare, from Congo to Colombia, and from the Arab Spring to Pussy Riot. Speaking Rights to Power addresses cutting edge debates on human rights and the ethic of care, cosmopolitanism, charismatic leadership, communicative action and political theater, and the role of social media. It draws on constructivist literature from social movement and international relations theory, and analyzes human rights as a form of global social imagination. Combining a normative contribution with judicious critique, this book shows how human rights rhetoric matters-and how to make it matter more.

EBONY is the flagship magazine of Johnson Publishing. Founded in 1945 by John H. Johnson, it still maintains the highest global circulation of any African American-focused magazine.

Football, in many ways, is a visual endeavour. From the visual experience within the stadium itself to worldwide media representations, from advertisements to football art and artefacts: football is much about seeing and being seen, about watching, making visual and being visualised. The FIFA World Cup 2010 in South Africa has turned into a perfect example of the visual dimensions of football. Stadiums have been built and marketed as tourist attractions, mass media and internet platforms are advertising South African cities and venues, logos and emblems are displayed and celebrated, exhibitions are organised in museums world-wide. This book explores the social, cultural and political role of football in Africa by focusing on the issue of its visibility and invisibility. The contributions consider the history and present of football in different parts of Africa. They examine historical and recent pictures and images of football and football players, as well as places and spaces of their production and perception. They analyse the visual dimensions expressed in sports infrastructure, football media-scapes, and in expressive and material arts. This book thus contributes to the growing interest in football in Africa by exploring a new field of research into sports. This book was previously published as a special issue of Soccer and Society.