The New New Zealand - The Demographic Disruption We're Not Talking About by Paul Spoonley

$39.99 NZD

Category: Politics

A BOLD NEW BOOK ON POPULATION TRENDS AND THE NEED TO CONFRONT THEM. In 2030 there may be six million of us. One and a half million of us will live overseas. We will be clustered in Auckland, dependent on migration, and worried about a shortage of workers. We havent planned for this. We need to. This maj or new book by Distinguished Professor Paul Spoonley, New Zealands preeminent commentator on population trends, looks at our rapidly growing and changing population and the demographic disruption it is already causing. To his mind, we are not taking enough notice of this disruption, and New Zealand urgently needs a population policy. With chapters like OK Boomer and Why Would Anyone Want to Live in Auckland? this book is urgent, provocative and will fuel many a dinner-party and policymaking conversation. ...Show more

From Russia with Blood by Heidi Blake

$36.99 NZD

Category: Politics

Orwell Prize-nominated journalist Heidi Blake uncovers exclusive details of Vladimir Putin's worldwide meddling with dissident voices. This is the explosive and true story of how Russia operates in our cities, right under the noses of the most powerful nations in the world, and why even they can't stop him. Russia's resurgent encroachment into the West is the defining geopolitical story of our time - and a topic of insatiable public fascination. Putin's use of targeted killing is designed to crush opponents, frighten critics into silence, exterminate traitors, and wipe out the Western financial facilitators who make flight from Russia possible. In one sense this is nothing new: the Russian president is the consummate FSB man and an heir to Soviet-era autocrats who used the country's feared security service to eliminate all opposition. But the growing pattern of brazen assassinations outside Russia's borders is a mark of an emboldened state with burgeoning global ambitions. Set in the heart of our cities, From Russia With Blood will analyze the geopolitical consequences of this strategy, and the dangers of the West's flat-footed response. Drawing on the expertise of Russian experts, intelligence insiders, academics and government sources in the US and Europe, Heidi Blake will uncover what has been kept from the public up until now. This book is based on hundreds of thousands of documents, crime scene evidence, computers and mobile phones, surveillance footage, high-level intelligence briefings from serving officials, and hundreds of insider interviews - but this is only the tip of the iceberg. Supported by a vibrant cast of characters and a fast-paced narrative, this story will draw on original reporting to tell the full story of how Russia refined the art and science of assassination as a form of statecraft. But it will also offer insights into its formidable cyber powers, sprawling international propaganda machine and fearsome security, espionage and organised crime complex to create a frighteningly effective strategy for growing global dominance. This is an unmissable guide to how Western governments failed to guard those living on home soil against the threat, the dramatic events of the past year and their alarming significance for the future. ...Show more

In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy by Frederic Martel

$37.00 NZD

Category: Politics | Reading Level: near fine

 In the Closet of the Vatican exposes the rot at the heart of the Vatican and the Roman Catholic Church today. This brilliant piece of investigative writing is based on four years' authoritative research, including extensive interviews with those in power.  The celibacy of priests, the condemnation of t he use of contraceptives, the cover up of countless cases of sexual abuse, the resignation of Benedict XVI, misogyny among the clergy, the dramatic fall in Europe of the number of vocations to the priesthood, the plotting against Pope Francis all these issues are clouded in mystery and secrecy. In the Closet of the Vatican is a book that reveals these secrets and penetrates this enigma. It derives from a system founded on a clerical culture of secrecy which starts in junior seminaries and continues right up to the Vatican itself. It is based on the double lives of priests and on extreme homophobia. The resulting schizophrenia in the Church is hard to fathom. But the more a prelate is homophobic, the more likely it is that he is himself gay. 'Behind rigidity there is always something hidden, in many cases a double life'. These are the words of Pope Francis himself and with them the Pope has unlocked the Closet. No one can claim to really understand the Catholic Church today until they have read this book. It reveals a truth that is extraordinary and disturbing. ...Show more

I Object: A History of Dissent by Ian Hislop + Thomas Hockenhull

$55.00 NZD

Category: Politics

Across millennia, dissent has been an essential ingredient in the development of human civilization, acting as a driving force behind social and political change. In I object, satirist Ian Hislop, along with co-writer Tom Hockenhull, gathers together some 180 objects that people have created, adapted, a nd used to mock and attack the status quo in societies as varied as eleventh-century bc Egypt, sixteenth-century England, and late twentieth-century Afghanistan. The objects--ranging from explicit symbols of dissidence such as badges, posters, prints, and ceramics, to items that contain hidden messages, such as wooden doors from Nigeria, a cotton kanga from Kenya, or a postage stamp from China--illuminate lost or forgotten moments in history, and give voice to those who have no other way to express their views safely.The book is organized into three sections: the first looks at overt challenges to authority, from defaced coins to visual satire; the second explores how subversive messages, codes, and metaphors can be concealed in, for example, clothing and jewelry; the third investigates the role of the artist as activist.I object is a celebration of the wit and ingenuity of those who have questioned the establishment, told through the objects they left behind. ...Show more

Dictatorland - The Men Who Stole Africa by Paul Kenyon

$25.00 NZD

Category: Politics

One dictator grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-story-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. One austere, incorruptible leader shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. The Libyan army officer who a uthored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds, and gold that have encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, keeping their people in dire poverty. ...Show more

The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani

$26.99 NZD

Category: Politics

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES Editors' ChoiceFrom the Pulitzer Prize-winning critic comes an impassioned critique of America's retreat from reason   We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy t heories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases.   How did truth become an endangered species in contemporary America? This decline began decades ago, and in The Death of Truth, former New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to this gathering storm. In social media and literature, television, academia, and politics, Kakutani identifies the trends--originating on both the right and the left--that have combined to elevate subjectivity over factuality, science, and common values. And she returns us to the words of the great critics of authoritarianism, writers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, whose work is newly and eerily relevant.   With remarkable erudition and insight, Kakutani offers a provocative diagnosis of our current condition and points toward a new path for our truth-challenged times. ...Show more

None of My Business by P. J. O'Rourke

$32.99 NZD

Category: Politics

Delving into the world of big money has all the excitement of being a war correspondent with only two-thirds of the danger. In None of My Business, P.J. O'Rourke takes forty-five years of experience making fun of terrible things in some of the world's most awful places and applies it to a place that's e ven worse-Wall Street. Want to get rich overnight for free in three easy steps with no risk? Then don't buy this book. (Actually, if you believe there's a book that can do that, you shouldn't buy any books because you probably can't read.) P.J.'s approach to business, investment, finance, and innovation is different. He takes the risks for you in his chapter "How I Learned Economics by Watching People Try to Kill Each Other," detailing the economic lessons he learned while reporting in some of the most turbulent combat zones across the world. P.J. has his eye on the present as well as the past. He explores the world of high tech innovation with a chapter on the Internet, which poses the question, "whose idea was it to put every idiot in the world in touch with every other idiot?" P.J. is baffled by bitcoin, which seems to him "like a weird scam invented by strange geeks with weaponized slide rules in the high school Evil Math Club." And he writes a fanciful short story about the morning he wakes up to find that all the world's goods and services are free-with disastrous (and hilarious) results for the rule of law and the harmony of society. This is P.J. at his finest, a book that reminds us that when everything around us is Liar's Poker, all we can do is fold-with laughter. ...Show more

Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data by Thomas Viktor; Ramge Mayer-Schonberger

$0.00 NZD

Category: Politics

The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray

$31.99 NZD

Category: Politics

A controversial and devastatingly honest depiction of the demise of Europe. The Strange Death of Europe is the internationally bestselling account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Douglas Murray takes a step back and explores the deeper issues behind the continent's possible dem ise, from an atmosphere of mass terror attacks and a global refugee crisis to the steady erosion of our freedoms. He addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away. Declining birth rates, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive alteration as a society and an eventual end. This sharp and incisive book ends up with two visions for a new Europe--one hopeful, one pessimistic--which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next. But perhaps Spengler was right: "civilizations like humans are born, briefly flourish, decay, and die." ...Show more

Why We March: Signs of Protest and Hope-Voices from the Women's March by Artisan Publishing

$29.99 NZD

Category: Politics | Reading Level: General Adult

On January 21, 2017, over 5 million people in 673 cities around the globe gathered in solidarity for the Women's March, carrying signs that shone with unwavering hope and determination and demanded the protection of women's rights, opposed the newly inaugurated U.S. president, and championed equality an d justice for all. Why We March presents 300 of the most powerful, uplifting, clever, and creative signs from these marches. "Nasty Women Unite." "Make America Think Again." "Build Bridges, Not Walls." "Girls Just Wanna Have Fundamental Rights." "Love Trumps Hate." "A Woman's Place Is in the Resistance." These images--featuring messages about reproductive rights and cabinet picks, immigration and police violence, climate change and feminism--together paint a striking portrait of resistance, despair, humour, and most of all, hope. This book will serve as a rallying cry for this burgeoning movement, and a valuable and timely encapsulation of an unprecedented moment in political history. ...Show more

Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash by Richard Lourie

$44.99 NZD

Category: Politics

An electrifying and timely book, by leading Russian expert Richard Lourie, that explores Putin's failures and whether Trump's election gives Putin extraordinarily dangerous opportunities in our mad new world.For reasons that are made clear in this book, Putin's Russia will collapse just as Imperial Russ ia did in 1917 and as Soviet Russia did in 1991. The only questions are when, how violently, and with how much peril for the world. The U.S. election complicates everything, including: - Putin's next land grab- Exploitations of the Arctic- Cyber-espionage- Putin and China...and many more crucial topics.Putin: His Downfall and Russia's Coming Crash is an essential read for everybody bewildered and dismayed by the new world order. ...Show more

Dirty Boys by John Ligato

$40.00 NZD

Category: Politics

A tenacious FBI agent is forced to operate outside the system to save the country. WHAT IF - A secret cell of ruthless and brilliant extremists possess the blueprint for the ultimate demise of America? WHAT IF - America's misfortunes over the past twelve years are not chance happenings and the slow, ste ady decay of the United States hastened by economic instability, educational decline, and supposedly natural disasters are part of a master plan? WHAT IF - The erosion of the American Constitution is part of an orchestrated effort to destroy the United States of America from the inside out? WHAT IF - A tenacious FBI agent begins to connect the dots but is forced to operate outside the system, breaking a full page of regulations and even a few laws to save the country and stop the terrorists? WHAT IF - They can't be stopped? ...Show more