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Newest Politics and Society Reviews (view source)
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[[Category:New Reviews|Politics and Society]]__NOTOC__ <!-- Remove -->{{Frontpage|author=Alastair Humphreys|title=Politics Local|rating=5|genre=Travel |summary= Alastair Humphreys has walked and cycled all over the world. And then written about it. For this book he walked and cycled very close to home and then wrote about it. As he says in his introduction, the book is an attempt ''to share what I have learnt about some big issues from a year exploring a small map. Nature loss, pollution, land use and access, agriculture, the food system, rewilding…'' One of the joys of the book for me was that the biggest thing he learned about all of these things was that there are no easy answers, no single 'right or wrong', that every upside is likely to have a downside for somebody and society=that there are some hard choices ahead.|isbn=1785633678__NOTOC__}}{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Justin Yifu LinEdel Rodriguez|title=Demystifying the Chinese EconomyWorm: A Cuban American Odyssey
|rating=4
|genre=Business and FinanceGraphic Novels|summary=We're in childhood, and we're in Cuba. The success of the Chinese economyrevolution has happened, and Castro, first thought of as Lin makes us awarea saviour of the country, has proven himself a success which contrasts strongly with what appeared major failure in the recent historical pastCommunist, is something which needs explanationand not done nearly enough to create a level playing field for all. No one can ignore it Well, and we are confronted with those hours-long speeches of his were kind of taking his time away. Our narrator's family weren't in the effects happiest of it from places here, an uncle refusing to be the good soldier the ownership of Thames water country demanded (especially as he would probably be shipped off to some minor pro-Communism skirmish, such as Angola) and the faces of tourists in London father being watched and watched, and Stratford on a daily basisnot liked for his successful photography business, success being frowned upon. And in The mother gets the couple jobs with the roots party to ease some of its success are the potential seeds of future changeheat, but in this sultry island country, a change that now more than ever is crucial to it remains the way kind of heat forcing you out of the world economy works.kitchen…|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521181747</amazonuk>1474616720
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=James PalmerSarah Wilson|title=The Death of MaoThis One Wild and Precious Life: The Tangshan Earthquake and the Birth of the New Chinapath back to connection in a fractured world|rating=43.5|genre=HistoryLifestyle|summary=Welcome My favourite Mary Oliver line is the one in which she asks ''What is it you plan to China, where the populous are busy leaving a rural country full of prosperous mineral resources do with your one wild and coal mines, precious life?'' I get to love that line so much because my answer is ''This! Precisely this.'' I'm lucky enough to be living my one wild and shoddily-built hydro-electric dams in environmentally dubious locations, for precious life the burgeoning, mechanised citiesway I want to. Sarah Wilson is equally lucky. But this isnIn her book that takes Oliver's words as her title (though I can't see that she acknowledges the birth of 2012, itsource) she pushes us to think about whether we really ''are''s living the life we want – the dawn of 1976best life that we could be living. Chairman Mao Her answer is dyingan unequivocal ''no, Premier Zhou Enlai has just died, and the cauldron of power is being stirred as never beforewe are not''. Among the momentous events of the year however will Don't care what you're doing, she thinks you (we, I) could be a huge earthquake directly centred on doing more…And she's effing furious about the city of Tangshan, which will kill something like two thirds of a million peoplefact that we are not.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0571243991</amazonuk>1785633848
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Gene Sharp1785633457|title=From Dictatorship to DemocracyCharging Around: Exploring the Edges of England by Electric Car|author=Clive Wilkinson|rating=35|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Gene Sharp is an American politologist and Clive Wilkinson has a veritable (and venerable) guru history of non-violent struggletravelling by unconventional means with a preference for slow travel. The story behind As he neared his eightieth birthday the ''From Dictatorship to Democracy'' is a fascinating one. The book, or a booklet really as it consists idea of exploring the edges of 160 small pages, England in an electric car was apparently created in response to a request from Burmese dissenters in the early 1990'snot totally outrageous. Sharp responded to this request by producing a generic textIn fact, it should be a manual pleasant holiday for the subversive that lies out the theory Clive and practical advice for those engaged in a struggle to bring down a dictatorship.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846688396</amazonuk>his wife, Joan, shouldn't it?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nicholas Shaxson1529153050|title=Treasure Islands: Tax Havens and the Men who Stole the WorldBritain's Best Political Cartoons 2022|author=Tim Benson
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyHumour|summary=Most people think about Seeking some light relief from the subject of tax havens - if they need to think about them at all - as something current political turmoil which is unlikely ever coming to concern them seem more and that theymore like an adrenaline sport, I was nudged towards ''Britain's Best Political Cartoons of 2022''re for the super-rich and celebrities. What might surprise them is Sharp eyes will have noted that more than half of world trade as well as most international lending is routed we're not yet through them and that many common items in your everyday shopping will come to you via a tax haven. And we really should be thinking about them because tax havens are ensuring that wealth in unprecedented amounts is being transferred from the poor to year: the rich - greatly exceeding the aid which flows in the opposite direction.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099541726</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Louise Foxcroft|title=Calories and Corsets: A history of dieting over two thousand years|rating=cartoons run from 4.5|genre=Politics and Society|summary=We’re in that post-Christmas period when all the socialising and indulging is over and all you’re left with is a pasty, bloated, over-fed but under-nourished complexion, a wardrobe full of clothes just a little too tight and a new year’s resolution September 2021 to Get Healthy31 August 2022. So it’s the perfect time for a new diet book to hit the shelves. The title of this one might make you think it’s going to Who can imagine what there will be full of useful tips, and the cover does little to dispel this idea, groaning as it is with the weight of plump jellies, lavish cupcakes and even a decadent lobster or two, but take a moment to note come in the subtitle, if you will: '''a history of dieting over 2000 years'''.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684250</amazonuk>2023 edition?
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{{newreviewFrontpage|isbn=B0B7289HKQ|authortitle=Dennis OConversations Across America: A Father and Son, Alzheimer'Donnells, and 300 Conversations Along the TransAmerica Bike Trail that Capture the Soul of America|titleauthor=The Locked WardKari Loya
|rating=4
|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Dennis O’Donnell spent 7 years working in a Scottish hospital Kari (that rhymes with ‘sorry’, by the way) wanted to spend some time with his father and this is the account of his period between two jobs seemed like a good time thereto do it. It takes a special type of person The decision was made to work in Mental Health services, and though O'Donnell ultimately leaves ride the Locked WardTrans America Bike Trail from Yorktown, he clearly is one of those peopleVirginia to Astoria, made Oregon - all 4250 miles of it - in 2015. They had 73 days to do it - slightly less than the more remarkable by the fact that recommended time - but there were factors which pointed this wasn’t his life long vocation, having previously worked up as more of a school teacher (some might say an equally challenging role)challenge that it would be for most people who considered taking it on. Merv Loya was 75 years old and he was suffering from early-stage Alzheimer's. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0224093606</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1739593901
|title=22 Ideas About The Future
|author=Benjamin Greenaway and Stephen Oram (Editors)
|rating=5
|genre=Science Fiction
|summary=''Our future will be more complex than we expected. Instead of flying cars, we got night-vision killer drones and automated elderly care with geolocation surveillance bracelets to track grandma.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Richard HeinbergJane Goodall and Douglas Abrams |title=The End Book of GrowthHope |rating=3.5|genre=Business Politics and FinanceSociety |summary=With the newspapers full of economic doom and gloom the last The done thing you might want is to pick up read a book that reiterates all the way through before you sit down to review it and then some. But while this book may seem at first glance to be a bit of a downer, it also provides I’m making an insight into how things might just work out ok in the end. Yesexception here, they’ll be some big changes – there have because I don’t want to be because lose any of the direction we’ve been heading in is just not sustainable – but if we’re willing to adaptexperience of reading this amazing book, we will survive was the main message I picked up want to capture it as I flicked through the pagesit hits me. And it is hitting me. This beautiful book has me in tears.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1905570333</amazonuk>024147857X
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=David Lammy1788360737|title=Out of the AshesArtivism: Britain After The Battle for Museums in the RiotsEra of Postmodernism|author=Alexander Adams|rating=4.52|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Just about everyone Can art ever be apolitical? All art is political because art is not made in a vacuum. It is made by people. Antonio Gramsci stated that ‘’Every man… contributes to modifying the country was shocked as pictures of the 2011 riots (social environment in which began he develops’’. Therefore, all art must be political, even implicitly. Alexander Adams in Tottenham and spread to other major cities his new book ‘Artivism: The Battle for Museum in the UK) unfolded on our television screens. Everyone, Era of Postmodernism’ is adamant that art is, except David Lammy, MP for the area. He might not have known freer when it would happen or what would trigger the riot, but a year before, he said that it would happenis art for art’s sake. This wasn't a lucky guessThe recent trend of so-called artivism has caused artists to become more overtly political (read: Lammy was born in Tottenham and brought up on the Broadwater Farm Estate as one of five children raised left wing). Their seemingly grass roots movements have been astroturfed by his singlelarge “left-parent mother wing” donors and he knows media elites hoping to create a more globalist and progressive regime. Or at least that’s what's happening on the groundAlexander Adams believes.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0852652674</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Luke Harding1398508632|title=Mafia StateThe Wilderness Cure|author=Mo Wilde
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyLifestyle|summary=Luke Harding set himself It had been on the cards for a difficult task when he took up his post as while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the Guardian’s main man best time to start, in Moscowa world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. He Wilde had already put his name to a front page story which appeared in few advantages: the Guardian in April 2007. This area around her was an account a known habitat with a variety of an interview with the archterrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car -oligarch and Kremlin criticfuel. Most importantly, Boris Berezovsky. Harding she had shelter: this was not at the interview but added background a plan to ''live'' wild just to the article from Moscowlive off its produce. However, }}{{Frontpage|isbn=1529149800|title=Things You Can Do: How to be in any way associated Fight Climate Change and Reduce Waste|author=Eduardo Garcia and Sara Boccaccini Meadows|rating=4|genre=Home and Family|summary=We begin with Berezovsky was sufficient to incur a telling story. All the birds and animals fled when the wrath forest fire took hold and most of the Russian Federal Security Servicethem stood and watched, unable to think of anything they could do. The tiny hummingbird flew to the FSB – the successor river and began taking tiny amounts of water and flying back to drop them into the KGBfire. The offending account animals laughed: what good was entitled, that doing. ''I'm doing the best I am plotting a new Russian revolution - London exile Berezovsky says force necessary to bring down President Putincan'', said the hummingbird. And that, really, is the only way that we will solve the problem of climate change – by each of us doing what we can, however small that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>085265247X</amazonuk>
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{{Frontpage
|isbn=1638485216
|title=Black, White, and Gray All Over: A Black Man's Odyssey in Life and Law Enforcement
|author=Frederick Reynolds
|rating=5
|genre=Autobiography
|summary=''Corruption is not department, gender or race specific. It has everything to do with character. Period.''
}}
{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Stephen H SegalMatthieu Aikins|title=Geek WisdomThe Naked Don't Fear the Water
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=It's easy to forget at times that The history of London Naked Don't Fear the Water isn't actually fiction, because it reads very much like a well-paced thriller at times. This is not by any means a criticism, but rather a testament to how well Matthieu Aikins – a long Canadian citizen who decided to accompany his friend as a refugee from Afghanistan through Europe – recounts a vast and storied one, at times painful journey. There are tense moments and gripping accounts of border crossings which had me on edge the whole way through. But it's unsurprising written with a haunting and almost lyrical quality that so many people have written about allows the capital. I've always loved reader to perfectly envisage the city, its history environments and novels and plays set within London, so was really keen to get my hands on this new volume in the Cambridge Companion seriespeople described.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0521722314</amazonuk>B09N9157T6
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Jolyon Fenwick and Marcus Husselby1785633074|title=It Could Have Been Yours: The enlightened person's guide to the year's most desirable thingsStaggering Hubris|author=Josh Berry|rating=4.5|genre=TriviaHumour|summary=In a world Members of diamond-encrusted skullsParliament like us to believe that the country is run by politicians, goldheaded by the Prime minister -leafed iPhones and luxury yachts ten a penny, of blingy shit the ''primus inter pares'' (or should that be shitty bling?) it's a relief to know people for those of you who are still spending money on unique one-offs that are more worthwhile. The records for costliest photo, artwork, musical instrument Eton and manuscript have all been broken in Oxbridge educated) but the twenty four months leading up to this book's release. Our collators have scoured reality is that the press for those and other, similarly noteworthy auctions, and found what other people paid for what you didn't know you would have wanted given the money.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846684900</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=John L Locke|title=Duels and Duets: Why Men and Women Talk So Differently|rating=4|genre=Popular Science|summary=Locke's subtitle prime''Why Men and Women Talk So Differently'' might lead you to think that this is just another selfmovers are the special advisers - the SPADS -help ''Men who are from Mars, Women are from Venus'' tomethe driving force behind the government. It's not. Rather than focussing upon what we all know from experience – that men and women do not communicate very well because of some fundamental difference We are in their respective approach to verbal expression – the New York City University Professor privileged position of Linguistics sets out having access to explain WHY that might be.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521887135</amazonuk>}} {{newreview|author=Frank Furedi|title=On Tolerance: The Life Style Wars: A Defence the memoirs of Moral Independence|rating=4|genre=Politics and Society|summary=Furedi is a Professor Rafe Hubris, the man who was behind the skilful control of Sociology at a UK university so he'll know his subject matter inside out. The short preface tells us that 'tolerance has been emptied the Covid crisis which was completely contained by the end of its moral and intellectual meaning2020.' This publication's aim is to argue You might not know the case for tolerance in society. How its meaning has changed over name now but he will certainly be the centuries until today's rather fuzzy and watered-down meaning. Professor Furedi was spurred on man to writing this book because he firmly believes that tolerance has been lost somehow, to be almost invisible in some areas of public and private lifewatch.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1441120106</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Chris Mullin1846276772|title=A Walk-on PartThe End of Bias: Diaries 1994 - 1999How We Change Our Minds|author=Jessica Nordell
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=We tend to remember where we were and how we heard about Anyone who is not an able, white man understands bias in that they may no longer even recognise the deaths of people like John F Kennedy, Elvis Presley and Princess Diana, but I'd add another person extent to the listwhich they suffer from it: John Smith. I remember sitting in my office and it's simply a colleague coming in to tell mepart of everyday life. She added 'I suppose we'll have that dreary Gordon Brown as leader now'White men will always come first. We'd many angst-ridden miles to go The able will come before that came about but Smith's death is the opening entry in thisdisabled. Jobs, promotions, higher salaries are the third volume (but first chronologically) preserve of Chris Mullin's Diariesthe white man. This book covers Even when those who wouldn't pass the first period medical become a part of an organisation it'New Labour's rare that their views are heard, from Smiththat their concerns are acknowledged. It's death until Mullinpersonally appalling and degrading for the individuals on the receiving end of the bias but it's assumption into government in July 1999not just the individuals who are negatively impacted.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1846685230</amazonuk>
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Tina Rosenberg1529148251|title=Join the ClubMisfits: How Peer Pressure Can Transform the WorldA Personal Manifesto|author=Michaela Coel
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Teenagers in South Carolina have become involved in the anti-smoking movement, passing out information encouraging their peers ''How am I able to educate themselves be so transparent on paper about the ways big tobacco companies try to get them hooked. There are youngsters in South Africa who’ve refused to have sex without a condom because of the danger of HIV rape, malpractice and AIDS. Minority students in Texas have challenged data going back years by succeeding at calculus where traditionally students of their race have struggled. Whypoverty, yet still compartmentalise? Because other people have done It's as though I were telling the same thing, and they want to fit intruth whilst simultaneously running away from it.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1848313004</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Max Pemberton0008350388|title=The Doctor Will See You NowWe Need to Talk About Money|author=Otegha Uwagba|rating=3.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The NHS ''To be a dark-skinned Black woman is one of those things that everyone seems to have an opinion aboutbe seen as less desirable, less hireable, less intelligent and this of course includes those of us who work for said organisation (the worldultimately less valuable than my light-skinned counterparts...'' 's 3rd largest employer, don'tcha know). Max Pemberton is one of those people: a doctor, though despite what you might assume from the title, not a GP but a hospital medic. This is his third book on the subject of life (and death) within the walls of a hospital, plus the odd excursion We Need to rather misnamed Care Homes, and itTalk About Money''s not a bad read. |amazonuk=<amazonuk>0340919949</amazonuk>}}by Otegha Uwagba
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Bob Marshall-AndrewsRichard Brook|title=Off MessageUnderstanding Human Nature: The Complete Antidote A User's Guide to Political HumbugLife|rating=4.5|genre=AutobiographyLifestyle|summary=Bob Marshall-Andrews entered Parliament in 1997I am a firm believer that sometimes we choose books, rather too late to be a career politician (he was already an established QC) and with a profound distrust sometimes books choose us. In my case, this is one of authoritythe latter. He Not so very long ago, if I had no aspirations towards officecome across this book I'd have skimmed it, found some of it interesting, which was perhaps as well for all concerned as he but it would become best known for being a dissidentnot have 'hit home' in the way that it does now. I believe it came to me not just because I occasionally enquired as was likely to which party held his allegiance and eventually concluded give it a favourable review [ ''full disclosure The Bookbag's u.s.p. is that he went with his conscience. The last three Labour administrations have spawned more political memoirs people chose their own books rather than any other getting them randomly, so there is a predisposition towards expecting to like the book, even if it doesn't always turn out that way'' ] – and but also because it is a book I did wonder if this would be just one more needed to add to the pileread, right now.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846684412</amazonuk>1800461682
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Karen Blixen1787332098|title=Out Of AfricaHow to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World|author=Henry Mance
|rating=5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Some books are hard to read''When we do think about animals, we break them down into species and even harder to reviewgroups: cows, dogs, foxes, elephants and so on. This is particularly true of what are essentially academic or "professional" books and you come to And we assign them as a lay reader. This then is my starting position places in society: cows go on plates, dogs on Ashes sofas, foxes in rubbish bins, elephants in zoos, and Sparksmillions of wild animals stay out there, ''somewhere,'' hopefully on the next David Attenborough series.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0521170907</amazonuk>}}''
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Nick Hewlett1523092734|title=The Sarkozy PhenomenonA Women's Guide to Claiming Space|author=Eliza Van Cort|rating=45
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=The old saying is that 'cometh the hour, cometh the man' and whether or not it's the electorate's ability to pick the man or whether he was only seen as the right man She brings a hug-kick-thunderclap that every woman needs in retrospect is a moot pointher life. There are, though, some surprising people at the head of European countries at the moment – with Silvio Berlusconi Again and again and Nicholas Sarkozy at the head of my personal listagain. My [[Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni: The True Story by Valerie Benaim and Yves Azeroual|last attempt]] to find out more about Sarkozy proved to be too light-weight for my tastes'' (Alma Derricks, but this time I've gone to the opposite end of the scale with a book from Nick Hewlettformer CMO, Professor of French Studies at the University of Warwick and published by Imprint Academic. I mention those points because there is no attempt to present this as populist writing: it's scholarly from beginning to end.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1845402391</amazonuk>}}Cirque du Soleil RSD)
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{{newreviewFrontpage|author=Dambisa MoyoPolly Barton|title=How the West was Lost: Fifty Years of Economic Folly And the Stark Choices AheadSounds|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and Society
|summary=Moyo's first bookWhere do I start? I could start with where Barton herself starts, with the question ''Dead AidWhy Japan?'' was Japan has been on my radar for a well regarded while and oft discussed title when if the world hadn't gone into melt-down I worked in Developmentwould have visited by now. In a country where it was hard to find any book at all, somehow every ex-pat household seemed to have at least one copy of I may get there later thisyear, and but I followed the sheep and had a readam not hopeful. It was a great, insightful book that we could all identify withAnd like Barton, and I was eager don't know the answer to read the question ''why Japan?'' She explains her secondfeelings in respect of the question in the first essay, if somewhat unrelated workwhich is on the sound ''giro' '' – which she describes as being, among other things, the sound of ''every party where you have to introduce yourself''.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>1846142350</amazonuk>1913097501
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|rating=5
|genre=Politics and SocietyTravel|summary=Xinran I was brought up on maps and first came to my notice with her 2002 book "The Good Women -person narratives of China" which retold tales of the women she had come across through her work in Chinese radiofar away places. I was birth-righted wanderlust and curiosity. Unfortunately, where for many years she I didn't inherit what Dr. Stephen Fabes clearly had hosted which was the local equivalent of a cross between Woman's Hour guts to simply go out and a late night phone-in talk showdo it. She has been busy bringing us other stories in I also didn't inherit the meantimekind of steady nerve, but in this latest work she returns ability to talk to those early days in radio strangers and basic practicality that would have meant that I would have survived if I had been gifted with the stories she learnedrequisite 'bottle'. Many In order words I'm not the sort of these stories she decided were too painful to tellperson who will get on a bike outside a London hospital and not come home for six years. They speak of children, specifically daughters, abandoned by their Chinese mothers one way or anotherFabes did precisely that.|amazonukisbn=<amazonuk>0099535750</amazonuk>1788161211
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{{newreviewFrontpage|authorisbn=Anna Politkovskaya1504321383|title=Nothing but the Truth: Selected Dispatches Single, Again, and Again, and Again|author=Louisa Pateman
|rating=4.5
|genre=Politics and SocietyAutobiography|summary=Anna Politkovskaya worked for the Russian newspaper Novaya gazeta, becoming particularly famous for her critical reports on the wars in Chechnya, on Putin, on state corruption ''You can't be happy and fulfilled on life in Russia under his regimeyour own. She never avoided controversy and received You are not complete until you find a number of death threats before she was murdered in October 2006. She had reason to know these were no idle threats – one of her articles here entitled man'Is Journalism Worth the Loss of a Life?' reports the attempted murder of one of her colleagues.|amazonuk=<amazonuk>0099526689</amazonuk>}}
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