The Arabian Peninsula in the Age of Oil examines the impact this valuable resource has had on the political and social development of the region.

May you live in interesting times," runs the old Chinese curse. During the worst recession since the 1930s, a university professor leaves the safe routines of campus life and hits the road, looking for a change of pace. But as the economy plummets, a supposedly manageable adventure becomes a four-and-a-half year journey into times that prove "interesting" indeed. He finds work as a cut-rate adjunct prof, a field hand, car washer, day laborer, janitor, and a variety of other vocations far r...

This is an age in which even the most honest and intelligent debate on social topics is risky. Free inquiry, which was once the pride of higher education, has almost disappeared as our politicized campuses have become one-party systems tolerating little dissent from the established orthodoxy. The ideology of multiculturalism in particular has led to demands for conformity in education and in society in general, and even threatens the liberties of Western civilization. Debate on fundamental...

This book not only tells about the hardships and tributes of the life of John Calvert but also gives an in-depth view of the educational system today from the eyes of a man who has been involved with it almost fifty years. It includes concerns and complaints from many people in several states in the country, who have seen issues in the system as well and voice their views and hope to be heard. It takes every position in the schoolfrom student, parent, all the way to principal, teacher, and...

This is an age in which even the most honest and intelligent debate on social topics is risky. Free inquiry, which was once the pride of higher education, has almost disappeared as our politicized campuses have become one-party systems tolerating little dissent from the established orthodoxy. The ideology of multiculturalism in particular has led to demands for conformity in education and in society in general, and even threatens the liberties of Western civilization.Debate on fund...

Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966) was an influential Egyptian ideologue credited with establishing the theoretical basis for radical Islamism in the post colonial Sunni Muslim world. Lacking a pure understanding of the leader's life and work, the popular media has conflated Qutb's moral purpose with the aims of bin Laden and al-Qaeda. He is often portrayed as a terrorist, Islamo-Fascist, and advocate of murder. This book rescues Qutb from misrepresentation, tracing the evolution of his thought withi...

Spurred by boredom and maybe a touch of mid-life crisis, a political science professor quits the security of academic life and with just the cash in his pocket, a worn-out station wagon and a cargo of books hits the road in search of something different.economy and the highest unemployment rate since the Great Depression. His new colleagues include neer-do-wells, zanies, bohemians, underachievers, and people temporarily or permanently down on their luck. He joins the new poor an un...

Well known throughout the Islamic world as the foundational thinker for a significant portion of the contemporary Muslim intelligentsia, Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and was jailed by Gamal Abdul Nasser’s government in 1954. He became one of the most uncompromising voices of the movement we now call Islamism and is perhaps best known for his book, Ma`lam fi al-tariq.A Child from the Village was written just prior to Qutb’s convers...

Bill Bryson has the rare knack of being out of his depth wherever he goes - even (perhaps especially) in the land of his birth. This became all too apparent when, after nearly two decades in England, the world's best-loved travel writer upped sticks with Mrs Bryson, little Jimmy et al. and returned to live in the country he had left as a youth.Of course there were things Bryson missed about Blighty but any sense of loss was countered by the joy of rediscovering some of the...

A contrarian yet highly engaging account of the spread of illiberal and anti-democratic sentiment throughout our culture that places responsibility on the citizens themselves. Over the past three decades, citizens of democracies who claim to value freedom, tolerance, and the rule of law have increasingly embraced illiberal politicians and platforms. Democracy is in trouble--but who is really to blame? In Our Own Worst Enemy, Tom Nichols challenges the current depi...

**A handbook for how political power really works, and what it takes to make change happen“[Liu] addresses a central question of this age: what, exactly, citizens who are unhappy with national politics can do, other than write a check or await the next chance to vote.” —The Atlantic**In this age of epic political turbulence, citizens everywhere are organizing to claim their power. Do you understand what power truly is, how it flows, who has it, and how you can exer...

David Foster Wallace's last and most ambitious undertakingThe agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival Wallace learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to e...