Forgotten Nations

Forgotten Nations
Author: Chris Deeley
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre:
ISBN: 9781785314568

Forgotten Nations tells the stories of the international soccer teams that are unable to break into FIFA's ranks, from the self-funded minnows of Barawa in south-western Sudan to Tibet's Dalai Lama-backed national side, and new media darlings Yorkshire. They play under the auspices of CONIFA--the Confederation of Independent Football Associations--created to help express the cultural identities of soccer's "stateless peoples," fighting for recognition on the biggest stage of all. Here are incredible human and sporting stories from diverse regions: from Matabeleland in Zimbabwe, still recovering from massacres 30 years ago, to Tuvalu in the south Pacific, threatened with inundation. Aided by wonderful behind-the-scenes access at London's 2018 CONIFA World Football Cup, and the irresistible willpower of sportsmen and women trying to make their stories heard, Forgotten Nations explains why 11,000 people crammed into a tiny stadium on the Black Sea coast in 2016 to watch two teams that most of the world has never heard of.

Forgotten Country

Forgotten Country
Author: Catherine Chung
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2012-03-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1101560495

A Booklist Top 10 First Novels of 2012 pick A Bookpage Best Books of 2012 pick “A richly emotional portrait of a family that had me spellbound from page one.”—Cheryl Strayed, bestselling author of Wild The night before Janie’s sister, Hannah, is born, her grandmother tells her a story: Since the Japanese occupation of Korea, their family has lost a daughter in every generation, and Janie is told to keep Hannah safe. Years later, when Hannah inexplicably cuts all ties and disappears, Janie goes to find her. Thus begins a journey that will force her to confront her family’s painful silence, the truth behind her parents’ sudden move to America twenty years earlier, and her own conflicted feelings toward Hannah. Weaving Korean folklore within a modern narrative of immigration and identity, Forgotten Country is a fierce exploration of the inevitability of loss, the conflict between obligation and freedom, and a family struggling to find its way out of silence and back to one another.

Why Nations Fail

Why Nations Fail
Author: Daron Acemoglu
Publisher: Currency
Total Pages: 546
Release: 2013-09-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0307719227

Brilliant and engagingly written, Why Nations Fail answers the question that has stumped the experts for centuries: Why are some nations rich and others poor, divided by wealth and poverty, health and sickness, food and famine? Is it culture, the weather, geography? Perhaps ignorance of what the right policies are? Simply, no. None of these factors is either definitive or destiny. Otherwise, how to explain why Botswana has become one of the fastest growing countries in the world, while other African nations, such as Zimbabwe, the Congo, and Sierra Leone, are mired in poverty and violence? Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson conclusively show that it is man-made political and economic institutions that underlie economic success (or lack of it). Korea, to take just one of their fascinating examples, is a remarkably homogeneous nation, yet the people of North Korea are among the poorest on earth while their brothers and sisters in South Korea are among the richest. The south forged a society that created incentives, rewarded innovation, and allowed everyone to participate in economic opportunities. The economic success thus spurred was sustained because the government became accountable and responsive to citizens and the great mass of people. Sadly, the people of the north have endured decades of famine, political repression, and very different economic institutions—with no end in sight. The differences between the Koreas is due to the politics that created these completely different institutional trajectories. Based on fifteen years of original research Acemoglu and Robinson marshall extraordinary historical evidence from the Roman Empire, the Mayan city-states, medieval Venice, the Soviet Union, Latin America, England, Europe, the United States, and Africa to build a new theory of political economy with great relevance for the big questions of today, including: - China has built an authoritarian growth machine. Will it continue to grow at such high speed and overwhelm the West? - Are America’s best days behind it? Are we moving from a virtuous circle in which efforts by elites to aggrandize power are resisted to a vicious one that enriches and empowers a small minority? - What is the most effective way to help move billions of people from the rut of poverty to prosperity? More philanthropy from the wealthy nations of the West? Or learning the hard-won lessons of Acemoglu and Robinson’s breakthrough ideas on the interplay between inclusive political and economic institutions? Why Nations Fail will change the way you look at—and understand—the world.

An Atlas of Extinct Countries

An Atlas of Extinct Countries
Author: Gideon Defoe
Publisher: Europa Editions
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 1609456815

"Prisoners of Geography meets Bill Bryson: a funny, fascinating, beautifully illustrated—and timely—history of countries that, for myriad and often ludicrous reasons, no longer exist. “Countries are just daft stories we tell each other. They’re all equally implausible once you get up close.” Countries die. Sometimes it’s murder, sometimes it’s by accident, and sometimes it’s because they were so ludicrous they didn’t deserve to exist in the first place. Occasionally they explode violently. A few slip away almost unnoticed. Often the cause of death is either “got too greedy” or “Napoleon turned up.” Now and then they just hold a referendum and vote themselves out of existence. This is an atlas of 48 nations that fell off the map. The polite way of writing an obituary is: dwell on the good bits, gloss over the embarrassing stuff. This book refuses to do so, because these dead nations are so full of schemers, racists, and con men that it’s impossible to skip the embarrassing stuff. Because of this – and because treating nation-states with too much reverence is the entire problem with pretty much everything – these accounts are not concerned with adding to the earnest flag saluting in the world, however nice some of the flags might be."

The Forgotten Country

The Forgotten Country
Author: Meriol Trevor
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Total Pages: 243
Release: 2013-08-15
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1444751670

Among Napoleon's lesser known activities was matchmaking. Alix, widow of the Prince of Montpierre and known for her elegance and intelligence, seemed to the Emperor a good match for one of his most successful generals, Laroche. But Alix is loath to marry anyone, her first marriage not having been happy. An unexpected proposal by the Comte de Berthol - a mere acquaintance, but like herself a Luxembourger - seems suddenly more attractive than submission to the Emperor's palns. On reaching the Comte's castle at Falkenberg she finds a more interesting yet more mystifying personality than she had anticipated. The attempted murder of General Laroche begins a chain of events which leads her to discover a depth of emotion she had not known she could possess.

Forgotten Americans

Forgotten Americans
Author: Isabel Sawhill
Publisher: Yale University Press
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2018-09-25
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0300241062

A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation’s economic inequalities One of the country’s leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society—economic, cultural, and political—and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. While many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

Factfulness

Factfulness
Author: Hans Rosling
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2018-04-03
Genre: Science
ISBN: 125012381X

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “One of the most important books I’ve ever read—an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world.” – Bill Gates “Hans Rosling tells the story of ‘the secret silent miracle of human progress’ as only he can. But Factfulness does much more than that. It also explains why progress is so often secret and silent and teaches readers how to see it clearly.” —Melinda Gates "Factfulness by Hans Rosling, an outstanding international public health expert, is a hopeful book about the potential for human progress when we work off facts rather than our inherent biases." - Former U.S. President Barack Obama Factfulness: The stress-reducing habit of only carrying opinions for which you have strong supporting facts. When asked simple questions about global trends—what percentage of the world’s population live in poverty; why the world’s population is increasing; how many girls finish school—we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In Factfulness, Professor of International Health and global TED phenomenon Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical new explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective—from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don’t know what we don’t know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn’t mean there aren’t real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most. Inspiring and revelatory, filled with lively anecdotes and moving stories, Factfulness is an urgent and essential book that will change the way you see the world and empower you to respond to the crises and opportunities of the future. --- “This book is my last battle in my life-long mission to fight devastating ignorance...Previously I armed myself with huge data sets, eye-opening software, an energetic learning style and a Swedish bayonet for sword-swallowing. It wasn’t enough. But I hope this book will be.” Hans Rosling, February 2017.

Land of Eagles

Land of Eagles
Author: Robin Hanbury-Tenison
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2009-05-30
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 0857714201

Albania is the least-known and least developed country in Europe. It has a long, rich and troubled past, characterised by unrest and isolationism. Today, very little is known of its people - beyond those who have emigrated to other countries in Europe - and its landscapes have remained virtually untravelled for centuries. Determined to discover the country behind the stereotypes and preconceptions, Robin Hanbury-Tenison and his wife Louella rode across Albania, from Thethi in the north to the border with Greece in the south. Following in the footsteps of Byron, Edward Lear and Edith Durham they crossed some of the wildest and arrestingly beautiful landscape in Europe. Through soaring mountain ranges and hidden valleys dotted with Illyrian, Roman and Byzantine ruins, they lived simply, staying in the homes of communities untouched by the 21st century and in towns bursting with artistic creativity. They discovered an ancient land, proud and fiercely independent, struggling to emerge from the darkness of repression and poverty and from the shadows of its more popular neighbours. Land of Eagles is the story of a lyrical and dramatic journey, peppered with adventure, mishap, discovery and unexpected encounters. Adorned with the history, legends and literature of Albania and with the tales of past travellers, it is a luminous portrait of this mysterious and eccentric country, which has for too long been forgotten by Europe.

Banaras

Banaras
Author: Bela Bhatia
Publisher: Penguin Random House India Private Limited
Total Pages: 683
Release: 2024-05-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 9357084207

There is a time when we are growing but we merely grow and a time when we start understanding how things around us function. Some things make sense and some don’t, and we begin to ask why . . . Suddenly life takes on a meaning and we start searching for more meanings. Over the course of more than three decades, Bela Bhatia’s work and concerns have brought her face-to-face with the harsh nature of people’s lives in India’s ‘forgotten country’—the hamlets, villages and slums—and the oppressive forces that rule and ruin the lives of Dalits, Adivasis, bonded labourers, women and other downtrodden groups. She has also witnessed how their everyday lives are pockmarked with violence and the brutality—often organized—they face when they resist. India’s Forgotten Country captures Bela’s early years as an activist in rural Gujarat, her research on the Naxalite movement, her investigations of violations of democratic rights in different regions, and her recent years dealing with the ongoing conflict between the state and Maoists in Bastar. The essays build on first-hand investigations conducted in states ranging from Bihar and Telangana to Rajasthan and Nagaland, besides Kashmir. People such as Deepa Musahar, Kaliben, Muchaki Sukadi, Zarifa Begum, Tareptsuba and others have ample space in this book to speak for themselves. These essays are stories of life, death and despair, but also serve as inspiring accounts of resistance, resilience, courage and hope.