Born in Britain in 1960, James Orbinski`s family moved to Canada when he was seven years old. As a young man, he became a medic to learn how to help, & deal with, the suffering of others. From then on he was plunged into many highly demanding situations, including being Head of Mission for Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) during the Rwandan genocide; engaging with the politics of humanitarian work as the President of MSF; being in New York when the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell on September 11; co-founding Dignitas International (an AIDS charity); & finally, returning to Rwanda on the 10th anniversary of the crisis there. In An Imperfect Offering, Orbinski not only tells his own inspiring story but is also remarkably provocative about what governments & agencies should & shouldn`t be doing to help the world`s poor & very sick. At the same time, he addresses what part each of us can play, so that we never lose sight of the dignity of those being helped, or deny them the right to act in their own lives. His conclusion is blunt & profound: ` Humanity is lost or saved one person at a time, one intention at a time, & one action at a time. There are no utopias waiting to be born. There is only what we do
- what you choose to do...`
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On 24th April 2015 people around the world commemorated the centenary of the death of over one million Armenians. In their eyes, & in those of many around the world, they will be remembering a genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey has always explained the dead as simply victims of a vicious civil war, & continues to this day to refuse to acknowledge the events as constituting genocide. This argument has become, in turn, an international issue. Twenty national parliaments in democratic countries have voted to recognise the genocide, but Britain & the USA continue to equivocate for fear, it would seem, of alienating their NATO ally. In this seminal book, Geoffrey Robertson QC, a former UN appeals judge, sets out to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the massacres & deportations were a crime against humanity which amounted to genocide. ...

This beach on the South Indian coast is full of activity. By day you can see fishermen bring in the catch, women selling fish, people & animals going about their business...but then, when the sun starts to set, the beach becomes a different place
- now it`s time for everyone to play, talk, sit around, eat & have fun...until the fisherfolk go to sleep, & all the others go home. French artist Joelle Jolivet takes you through a day
- & night
- on an Indian beach. Have fun exploring, colouring, & adding to this never-ending book surrounded by the sea!


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The Ramayana
- the Journey of Rama
- is India`s best-loved book, an inspiration to school-children, monks & moviemakers,

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The jaguar is one of the most mysterious & least-known big cats of the world. The largest cat in the Americas, it has survived an onslaught of environmental & human threats partly because of an evolutionary history unique among wild felines, but also because of a power & indomitable spirit so strong, the jaguar has shaped indigenous cultures & the beliefs of early civilizations on two continents. In An Indomitable Beast: The Remarkable Journey of the Jaguar, big-cat expert Alan Rabinowitz shares his own personal journey to conserve a species that, despite its past resilience, is now on a slide toward extinction if something is not done to preserve the pathways it prowls through an ever-changing, ever-shifting landscape dominated by humans. Rabinowitz reveals how he learned from newly available genetic data that the jaguar was a single species connected genetically throughout its entire range from Mexico to Argentina, making it unique among all other large carnivores in the world. In a mix of personal discovery & scientific inquiry, he sweeps his readers deep into the realm of the jaguar, offering fascinating accounts from the field. Enhanced with maps, tables, & colour plates, An Indomitable Beast brings important new research to life for scientists, anthropologists, & animal lovers alike. This book is not only about jaguars, but also about tenacity & survival. From the jaguar we can learn better strategies for saving other species & also how to save ourselves when faced with immediate & long-term catastrophic changes to our environment. ...

Robert Louis Stevenson was not only a gifted writer; he was also an indefatigable traveller. His thirst for adventure was formed by his boyhood visits to remote Scottish lighthouses, & he spent much of his life fleeing the rigours of cold climes & social orthodoxy. Along the way he travelled through the Cevennes with a donkey, booked passage to & across America, & finally famously settled in Samoa in the South Pacific. The canoeing trip through Belgium & northern France that Stevenson describes in An Inland Voyage was taken in 1876, when the author was 26 years old. Stevenson & his companion, Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, each had a kayak A-style wooden canoe, with a deck & rigged with a sail. Starting in Belgium & then travelling downriver in France from Maubeuge (near Mons) to Pontoise on the outskirts of Paris, the book paints a charming picture of Western Europe at a more innocent time. ...

Robert Louis Stevenson was not only a gifted writer; he was also an indefatigable traveller. His thirst for adventure was formed by his boyhood visits to remote Scottish lighthouses, & he spent much of his life fleeing the rigours of cold climes & social orthodoxy. Along the way he travelled through the Cevennes with a donkey, booked passage to & across America, & finally famously settled in Samoa in the South Pacific. The canoeing trip through Belgium & northern France that Stevenson describes in An Inland Voyage was taken in 1876, when the author was 26 years old. Stevenson & his companion, Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, each had a kayak-style wooden canoe, with a deck & rigged with a sail. Starting in Belgium & then travelling downriver in France from Maubeuge (near Mons) to Pontoise on the outskirts of Paris, the book paints a charming picture of Western Europe at a more innocent time. About this series: Stanfords Travel Classics feature some of the finest historical travel writing in the English language, with authors hailing from both sides of the Atlantic. Every title has been reset in a contemporary typeface to create a series that every lover of fine travel literature will want to collect & keep. ...

An Innocent Abroad, Life-changing trips from 21 Great Writers is a travel anthology sampling true travel experience of well-known authors like Isabel Allende, John Berendt, Dave Eggers, Richard Ford, Pico Iyer, Alexander Mc Call Smith & Jane Smiley. The stories in this collection cover the globe & reveal a wide variety of experiences that shaped characters & changed the lives of the people envolved. ...

An Intimate War tells the story of the last thirty-four years of conflict in Helmand Province, Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of the Helmandis. In the West, this period is often defined through different lenses
- the Soviet intervention, the civil war, the Taliban, & the post-2001 nation-building era. Yet, as experienced by local inhabitants, the Helmand conflict is a perennial one, involving the same individuals, families & groups, & driven by the same arguments over l&, water & power. This book
- based on both military & research experience in Helmand & 150 interviews in Pashto
- offers a very different view of Helmand from those in the media. It demonstrates how outsiders have most often misunderstood the ongoing struggle in Helmand & how, in doing so, they have exacerbated the conflict, perpetuated it & made it more violent
- precisely the opposite of what was intended when their interventions were launched. Mike Martin`s oral history of Helmand underscores the absolute imperative of understanding the highly local, personal, & non-ideological nature of internal conflict in much of the `third` world.



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This introductory textbook has been designed by a team of experts for elementary university courses in astronomy & astrophysics. It starts with a detailed discussion of the structure & history of our own Galaxy, the Milky Way, & goes on to give a general introduction to normal & active galaxies including models for their formation & evolution. The second part of the book provides an overview of the wide range of cosmological models & discusses the Big Bang & the expansion of the Universe. Written in an accessible style that avoids complex mathematics, & illustrated in colour throughout, this book is suitable for self-study & will appeal to amateur astronomers as well as undergraduate students. It contains numerous helpful learning features such as boxed summaries, student exercises with full solutions, & a glossary of terms. The book is also supported by a website hosting further teaching materials. ...