Best Little Stories from the Life and Times of Winston Churchill
Author: C Brian Kelly
Winston Churchill was one of the most extraordinary figures of the twentieth century. Able to see clearly when so many were blind to the threat posed by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, Churchill was strong in a time of crisis and inspired nations to greatness. His colorful and stimulating prose, his perseverance in facing adversity, his prodigious contributions to literature, his devotion to the ideal of liberty, and his courageous leadership are there for all to see and follow.
Best Little Stories of Winston Churchill is a collection of stories from the great man's life. Prepared in conjunction with the author's lectures on Churchill at Oxford University in the summer of 2007, it includes stories such as:
*The many times as a boy, youth, and young man he almost died due to illness, accident, or repeated brushes with death on the battlefield.
*His prediction during his teen years that one day he would be the defender of London-and England itself-in a horrible war.
*Draining a pond to recover a watch-a present from his father, Lord Randolph Churchill-he had lost while swimming.
*His capture and incredible escape from the Boers in the Boer War after hiding in a coal mine among a colony of white rats.
*His maiden speech in parliament in 1901 at age 26, which was closely covered by England's major newspapers.
*Learning how to overcome his lisp from an Irish-born American politician who taught him "how to hold thousands in thrall" as a speaker.
*His secret and fortunately mild heart attack suffered shortly after Pearl Harbor while visiting the White House for Christmas in 1941.
*His remarkable ascent up the political ladder as a young blueblood incontrast with his parliamentary partnership with David Lloyd George in creating Britain's early welfare legislation.
See also: The Casebook of Forensic Detection or A Great Improvisation
Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Author: Maude Barlow
An Inconvenient Truth of water.
“Imagine a world in twenty years, in which no substantive progress has been made to provide basic wastewater service in the Third World, or to force industry and industrial agriculture production to stop polluting water systems, or to curb the mass movement of water by pipeline, tanker and other diversion, which will have created huge new swaths of desert."
“Desalination plants will ring the world’s oceans, many of them run by nuclear power; corporate nanotechnology will clean up sewage water and sell it to private utilities who will sell it back to us at a huge profit; the rich will drink only bottled water found in the few remote parts of the world left or sucked from the clouds by machines, while the poor die in increasing numbers. This is not science fiction. This is where the world is headed unless we change course.”
— Maude Barlow
Dubbed “Canada’s best-known voice of dissent” by the CBC, Maude Barlow has proven herself again and again to be on the leading edge of issues Canadians care deeply about. In Blue Covenant, Barlow lays out the actions that we as global citizens must take to secure a water-just world — a “blue covenant” for all.
Publishers Weekly
Canadian antiglobalization activist Barlow (Blue Gold) calls for a "blue covenant" among nations to define the world's fresh water as "a human right and a public trust" rather than a commercial product. Barlow marshals facts and figures with admirable (if often dry) comprehensiveness, noting that as many as 36 U.S. states could reach a water crisis in five years; that once vast freshwater resources like Lake Chad and the Aral Sea are becoming briny puddles; and a handful of multinational water companies, abetted by World Bank monetary policies and United Nations political timidity, are bidding for the "complete commodification" of formerly public water resources. Her passionate plea for access-to-water activism is buttressed with some breakthroughs; Uruguay has enshrined public water rights in its constitution (the only nation to do so), and "water warriors" are fighting back in Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, where activists have forced private water companies to cede control of municipal water systems. There's a noble tilting-at-windmills quality to the author's call for private citizens and nongovernmental organizations to challenge corporate control of water delivery, agitate for equitable access to clean water and confront the reality that freshwater supplies are dwindling. (Feb.)
Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information
No comments:
Post a Comment