An enchanting new comedy by Pulitzer Prize finalist Sarah Ruhl. Views: 578
G-Zero — JEE-ZEER-oh —nA world order in which no single country or durable alliance of countries can meet the challenges of global leadership. What happens when the G20 doesn’t work and the G7 is history.If the worst threatened—a rogue nuclear state with a horrible surprise, a global health crisis, the collapse of financial institutions from New York to Shanghai and Mumbai—where would the world look for leadership? The United States, with its paralyzed politics and battered balance sheet? A European Union reeling from self-inflicted wounds? China’s “people’s democracy”? Perhaps Brazil, Turkey, or India, the geopolitical Rookies of the Year? Or some grand coalition of survivors, the last nations standing after half a decade of recession-induced turmoil?How about none of the above?For the first time in seven decades, there is no single power or alliance of powers ready to take on the challenges of global leadership. A generation ago, the United States, Europe, and Japan were the world’s powerhouses, the free-market democracies that propelled the global economy forward. Today, they struggle just to find their footing.Acclaimed geopolitical analyst Ian Bremmer argues that the world is facing a leadership vacuum. The diverse political and economic values of the G20 have produced global gridlock. Now that so many challenges transcend borders—from the stability of the global economy and climate change to cyber-attacks, terrorism, and the security of food and water—the need for international cooperation has never been greater. A lack of global leadership will provoke uncertainty, volatility, competition, and, in some cases, open conflict. Bremmer explains the risk that the world will become a series of gated communities as power is regionalized instead of globalized. In the generation to come, negotiations on economic and trade issues are likely to be just as fraught as recent debates over nuclear nonproliferation and climate change.Disaster, thankfully, is never assured, and Bremmer details where the levers of power can still be found and how to exercise them for the common good. That’s important, because the one certainty of weakened nations and enfeebled institutions is that someone will try to take advantage of them. Every Nation for Itself offers essential insights for anyone attempting to navigate the new global playing field.Amazon.com Review Fareed Zakaria and Ian Bremmer: Author One-to-One In this Amazon exclusive, we brought together authors Fareed Zakaria and Ian Bremmer and asked them to interview each other.Fareed Zakaria is the editor of Newsweek International and writes a weekly column on international affairs. He also hosts "Fareed Zakaria GPS" for CNN. He is the author of the New York Times best-sellers The Future of Freedom and The Post-American World: Release 2.0. Zakaria lives in New York City. Read on to see Fareed Zakaria's questions for Ian Bremmer, or turn the tables to see what Bremmer asked Zakaria. Fareed Zakaria: What is a G-Zero world, and how did we get here? Ian Bremmer: The G-Zero is a world without effective, consistent leadership. It’s not the G7 world where Western industrialized powers set the agenda. It’s not a G20 world where developed and developing states find some way to work together on tough transnational problems. It’s a world where no can be counted either to pay the piper or call the tune. I love the story in your book The Post American World, about Colin Powell making peace between Spain and Morocco over a disputed island in time to go swimming with his grandkids. I included a story in Every Nation for Itself about how Lyndon Johnson diverted about 20 percent of America’s wheat crop in 1965 to help India feed its people during a drought. The leadership capacity that these two stories illustrate isn’t what it used to be, and Europe has too many serious problems of its own to try to take up the slack. At the same time, we can’t expect emerging powers like China, India, Brazil, Turkey, Russia, or the wealthy Gulf monarchies to fill this vacuum because their governments have neither the bandwidth nor the desire to accept the risks and burdens that come with much greater international leadership. But Every Nation for Itself is not about the shifting balance of international power. In fact, we can’t know what the longer-term future holds for America, Europe, China or any of these other countries. There are good reasons to bet on U.S. resilience, but that will depend on the quality of American leadership in years to come. The rest will continue to rise, but some of them will have more staying power than others. We can forecast with great confidence, however, that the world has entered a period of transition, one in which global leadership will be in short supply. Every Nation for Itself is about that historic shift and the tremendous challenges and opportunities it will create--for the global economy, for relations between the world’s most powerful governments, and for the world’s ability to cope with a variety of what we might call “problems without borders.” Zakaria: What do you mean by problems without borders? Bremmer: First, there’s the traditional threat to regional peace and stability. U.S. and European elected officials know that voters tend to support costly, extended military commitments only when they believe that vital national interests are at stake. That’s why, from Yugoslavia to Rwanda and from Sudan to Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia, they’ve remained on the sidelines as much as possible. Given the need for austerity on both sides of the Atlantic, we’re likely to see both a larger number of local conflicts around the world and an even deeper Western reluctance to engage. But conventional conflict is not the only potential source of trouble. Given the market volatility of the past four years, governments of both established and leading emerging powers are more worried than ever about creating jobs and boosting growth, and the most important instruments of power and influence in coming years will be economic tools like market access, investment rules, and currency policies. This will also be a world in which great power competition takes place in cyberspace as state-backed industrial espionage becomes an ever more widely used weapon in the battle for natural resources and market share. It’s a world in which some authoritarian emerging players will find new ways to reestablish state control over the flow of ideas, information, people, money, goods and services. Add climate change, the risk of food price shocks, threats to public health and other problems that flow easily across borders and the world will be without international leadership just at the moment when it needs it most. Zakaria: Who are the biggest winners in this G-Zero world? Bremmer: The first key to success in this period of transition is a recognition that changes to the global system will enable an unprecedented number of governments to play by their own rules. Those who still operate as if borders are opening, barriers are falling, and the world is becoming a single market will find themselves reacting to events they don’t understand. In a G-Zero world, the winners will be those players that can develop and maintain choices. The most important option a government can have is a choice among potential commercial and security partners.Among the most fortunate are the “pivot states,” those that are able to build profitable relationships with multiple partners without becoming overly reliant on any one of them. Then there are “rogues with powerful friends,” states that openly flout international rules with cover from other governments. In a world where newly cost-conscious established powers will have to resort more often to political and economic (rather than military) pressure to get their way, these ties will be more important than ever. Companies will have new opportunities too. Among multinationals, watch out for what I call the “adapters,” those that understand the changing competitive landscape and are agile enough to exploit the advantages it provides. Some companies can respond to a world with fewer enforceable rules by exploiting arbitrage opportunities to minimize tax and regulatory burdens. Others can transform a state-backed rival into a commercial partner by offering something that a government-controlled enterprise can’t get anywhere else, like access to battle-tested advanced technology or services that demand unique expertise. Finally, because the G-Zero is a period of transition, significant changes in the international balance of power stoke both competition among would-be regional powers and anxiety among those who fear they aren’t yet ready to compete. That’s why a group of companies we might call “protectors” will also figure among the likeliest winners. Firms involved in defense against conventional military strikes, cyber-attack, terrorism or commercial piracy will prosper in a G-Zero world, particularly if they’re able to align themselves with deep-pocketed emerging market governments. Zakaria: Say more about this idea of pivot states? Bremmer: Over the past 30 years, the big winners were states that adapted to and profited from the processes of Western-led globalization. But in a world that is more likely to have several regional centers of gravity, one in which no single country can afford to play the global leader, governments will have to create more of their own opportunities. The ability to pivot will be a critical advantage. For example, Brazil has built strong political ties and promising commercial relations with the United States, China and a growing number of other emerging market countries. As a result, its economy continues to enjoy access to American consumers, but its ties with China, now Brazil’s largest trade partner, ensure that it isn’t overly dependent on U.S. purchasing power for growth. A serious downturn in the U.S. will still take a heavy toll on Mexico. That’s much less true for Brazil. The book profiles several pivot states, from Turkey and Vietnam to Canada and Kazakhstan. Zakaria: What does the G-Zero mean for the United States? Bremmer: It means that America will have to learn to do something it doesn’t do very well these days: Invest in the future. In a country where political leaders focus so much of their energies on winning the next news cycle, and business leaders try to maximize quarterly profits at the expense of long-term reinvestment, Americans need to look beyond the horizon described in this book. Anyone who believes that American decline is inevitable has chosen to ignore the entire history of the United States and its people. For the moment, America can’t lead in quite the same way it did during the second half of the 20th century, because the world and its balance of power have changed profoundly. But the G-Zero will provoke a tremendous amount of trouble for a wide variety of people. It can’t last, because tomorrow’s most important powers, whoever those powers happen to be, can’t afford for it to continue. That’s why, if Americans can rebuild for the future, the country’s underlying strengths--its hard power capacities and its democratic, entrepreneurial values will ensure that U.S. leadership can again prove indispensable for international security and prosperity. I argue in the book’s final chapter that leadership of a post-G-Zero world should be the goal that guides American foreign and domestic policies in years to come. Zakaria: Why do you believe, as you say in the book, that “China is the major power least likely to develop along a predictable path?” Bremmer: China’s leaders have acknowledged that the country’s growth model is “unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable,” and they know that their ability to guide China through the next stage of its development is far from certain. India, Brazil, and Turkey can continue to grow for the next ten years with the same basic formula that triggered growth over the past ten. The United States, Europe, and Japan will reinvest in economic systems that have a long history of success. But China has to undertake enormously complex and ambitious reforms to continue its drive to become a modern, middle-class power. At the same time, the international environment is becoming less friendly to China’s expansion. Higher prices for the oil, gas, metals and minerals that China needs to power its economy will weigh on growth. The rise of many other emerging powers will add to the upward pressure on food and other commodity prices, undermining public confidence in government, the most important source of China’s social stability. As state-backed Chinese companies draw their government into the political and economic lives of so many other countries, particularly in the developing world, they risk the same backlash from local companies and workers that plagues so many other foreign firms doing business far from home. And because the Chinese government has such a direct stake in the success of these companies, Beijing will be drawn into conflicts it has never coped with before. Zakaria: I’m interested to see that your book is quite bullish on Africa’s political and economic future? Why is the G-Zero world good for Africa? Bremmer: Africa has become the world’s most underrated growth story, in part because it has become a kind of “pivot continent.” For many years, cash-strapped African states had to turn almost exclusively to the IMF, World Bank and Western governments for the aid and investment they needed to bankroll development, and the money often came with strings attached--like demands for democratic reforms and greater openness to Western investment. Over the past decade, however, just as we’ve seen in Brazil and other parts of the emerging market world, China has sharply increased its investment in the region. But this is not a story about U.S.-Chinese competition. The winner here is Africa, which can now expect multinational and state-owned companies from the established and emerging market worlds--from America, Europe, Japan, China, India and elsewhere--to compete for access to African consumers and favorable investment terms. The world’s largest emerging markets get this. That’s one big reason why the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) invited South Africa to join their club in December 2010. Photo of Ian Bremmer © Marc Bryan Brown Review“Ian Bremmer combines shrewd analysis with colorful storytelling to reveal the risks and opportunities in a world without leadership. This is a fascinating and important book.”(-FAREED ZAKARIA, author of The Post-American World )“An insightful look at the relative decline of postwar international institutions, the must-evolve nature of American leadership, and the growing need for long-term, multifaceted cooperation between the United States and China. Required reading for anyone interested in the current state and near-term future of global affairs.”(-MUHTAR KENT, CEO, The Coca-Cola Company )“We have entered a new era where challenges are increasingly stretching across geographical borders. Every Nation for Itself is a must-read for any global executive who aspires to accurately assess the risks and exploit the opportunities created by this new environment.”(-DUNCAN NIEDERAUER, CEO, NYSE Euronext )“Every Nation for Itself is a provocative and important book about what comes next. Ian Bremmer has again turned conventional wisdom on its head.”(-NOURIEL ROUBINI, chairman, Roubini Global Economics )“Bremmer’s astute assessment of how the shifting geopolitical landscape will impact political and economic alliances provides essential insights for anyone conducting business at the global level.”(-DOMINIC BARTON, global managing director, McKinsey & Company )“Bremmer has written an essential navigational guide for all national and corporate leaders in the new leaderless world.”(-SIR MARTIN SORRELL, CEO, WPP )“Global political economy has no sharper or more prescient analyst than Ian Bremmer. Everyone who cares about our collective future will need to carefully consider this book’s impressive arguments.”(-LAWRENCE SUMMERS, former U.S. Treasury Secretary ) Views: 578
A collection of poetry by award winning author Charles W Harvey. Reissued from the popular When Dogs Bark. These poems tell the unvarnished truth. They are not about daffodils or a walk in the park. They speak of the grittiness of love and touch the underbelly. A few might have you rushing to the refrigerator for your favorite cucumber.Bark TooIt’s finally here. From the Author of the original When Dogs Bark, comes Bark Too. This edition contains all of the poetry of the original plus some added. It’s slim, compact--just right for today’s reading technology. Carry this in your phone or your favorite tablet. Or just read it on your computer. What are these poems about? I think they are about the truth, unvarnished and raw. The praises speak for themselves. Why all of this bark stuff? What does a dog do when he wants your attention? He barks. What does a dog do when he senses danger? He growls. What does a dog do when he wants his belly rubbed and his ears stroked? He whines and snuggles close to you. In Bark Too you will experience the dog in all of his ways. Some of his words will make you back off and some will make you go to your refrigerator, pull out the cucumber, and...well we want go there. Breeze through the sample and take a chance. Woof!Don’t forget to check out the short story that started all of this barking stuff. And for you paper lover’s the original paperback is available.Now some things to make you go “hmm.”Night ClothesThe best time to be naked is 3:00 amBlack velvet skin is the proper attireAs you stand on your balcony Stroking the night—A little drink, a little smoke, a little lonely.There ought to be other menStanding on their porches tooAiming the red tips of their cigarettesAt you.anonymous menThere is blue joyin solitude,sweetness in the lonely soft night that drapes the bones of black men.I dance in this solitude.I carry wrapped in my heart to my homea willowy young body.We make love in solitaryLater,we kiss under the blue morning canopyand carry off pieces of blue joyin our deep pockets.Seven-Thousand And OneI’m going to write me a bookand put you in it.On the cover, it’s youall naked--black, brown, or red.You will be bald, afroed, or dreadlocked.Your sex will be nine inches of hot loveor six inches of sweet satisfaction.Your ass will have more curves than a sweet cantaloupes.I’ll title my book“How To Love You.”Every page will be blank.All we have to do is fill themone leaf at a time.Don’t worry the plot,we make it up as we go along.I wrote “the end” on pageSeven thousand and one.So let’s just take our time. Views: 578
Book One. Mateo Esposito loves his job. Hired assassin for the U.S. Government, he takes lives and he kicks ass with no mercy.When a job lands in his lap that's just not quite right, Mateo finds himself questioning orders for the first time in his career. Who would have known he'd be undone by a purple hippo...Riley Flynn is CEO of Flynn Electronics. Deep in his closet, Riley wonders what it would feel like to be with a man. When his path crosses with Mateo's, their lives will never be the same.Because, Riley is Mateo's next target.......Be aware....Hot guys making love, Satan on TV and anal beads are just a few of the things guaranteed to make you spit your liquid on your monitor. Enjoy!This book contains explicit sexual situations, graphic language, and material that some readers may find objectionable: male/male sexual practices, violence. Views: 578
“Every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in.”- Michael Corleone, The Godfather
Freed from jail, Anya hopes that things will get back to normal. But life on the outside is even more dangerous than life behind bars. Some of her gangland family want revenge for the crime for which she has done time: the shooting of her uncle. Forced to flee the country, Anya hides out in a cacao plantation in Mexico. There she learns the secrets of the chocolate trade, a trade that is illegal and deadly in her native New York. There too she discovers that seemingly random acts of violence carried out across the world have a single target: her family. As innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire Anya must act fast and decisively to stop it, no matter what the danger to herself. Views: 578
A student discovers a strange sonnet in a library’s collection of Italian Renaissance poetry. This leads him to another, greater revelation – a centuries-old story of lust, greed and killings – all the sins of a single man. The student is soon to find out that this mysterious persona is in the middle of one of the most shameful chapters of the Vatican's history.Refering back to the Chaos Gate in the short novel Other Worlds Than These, Beyond the Gate is a collection of a dozen Sci-Fi and Fantasy short stories that give further views of the worlds beyond our own.A Story for Enchu- A young Amazon child is told a story about the days proceeding his birth.And the Scroll Read... - Old scrolls always say interesting things!Statues in the Southern Marsh- A young magician living in a swampland meets a friend of his late father.Chapter 20- The Lost Chapter- The missing chapter from the book Saving John.Hill 136- An airship crew pick up an unexpected passenger on a secluded hilltop.The Treasure Map- On a summer morning, three youths have the adventure of their young lives.The Bronze Coin- A gas station attendant flips a special coin, sending him places he never thought he could be.The Supervisor- The final part of The Treasure Map trilogy finds Aros and Vega confronted by a tourist with the upper hand.Seven Forty Seven- An EMT on a transfer ambulance has a patient he will never forget.Blackheart- Across a shallow sea on a clouded world, a nameless traveler walks toward a great mountain and his fate.A Deep Dive- A group of four divers go for a dive in the morning and come back with a fifth late in the evening.Vega's Lullaby- "They had just made it out of one war and found themselves thrust into another..." Views: 577
The second in the enthralling new mini-series of novellas from the #1 bestselling authors of the House of Night, Lenobia's Vow tells the gripping story behind the House of Night's enigmatic riding instructor – and one of Zoey’s closest allies against evil
The House of Night is an international publishing sensation; with almost 12 million books in print, and an incredible 120 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, the series has taken the world by storm. Now, the excitement continues as the Cast mother-daughter duo shares the back stories of a few of the House of Night's most important – and mysterious – characters. The second of the House of Night Novellas brings us Lenobia, the strong, beautiful horseback riding instructor, who guides Zoey through some of her darkest hours, and has a dark secret buried in her own past...
In a small southern town at the turn of the century, young Lenobia is developing into a beautiful young woman with ideas of her own. But when she is Marked as a fledgling vampyre, her world turns upside down, and she is drawn to the musical streets of New Orleans. There, she learns of the city’s dark underbelly, ruled by powerful black magic. As Lenobia experiences her first love – and loss – and discovers a passion for horses to sustain her, she must come face-to-face with Darkness itself. And she may not escape without scars. Views: 577
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. But what if you can't tell which is which? When attorney Izzy McNeil's home is broken into, right after her boyfriend, Theo, moves in, she ignores the coincidence. When Theo is arrested on charges of fraud, she wants to believe he's innocent. But when a neighbor is found dead, she can't ignore that something is very, very wrong.Izzy also can't forget how Theo was inexplicably turned down for a mortgage. Or his recent moody silences. Or how a stranger warned her that Theo needs to accept responsibility. Thrust into Theo's case, Izzy must walk the line between attorney and lover to prove that Theo is innocent. But only Izzy can decide whether trusting Theo will keep her safe or throw her into unimaginable danger. Views: 577
Harlow Had Been Sentenced To Die At Dawn. For The Town Of Los Santos, Dawn Couldn't Come Soon Enough... Everyone in Los Santos had crossed paths with Harlow at one time or another, from the days when he was a snot-nosed boy stealing from kitchen gardens and tormenting dogs to the moment he acquired his first taste for murder. Along the way, Harlow left town and started to burn, pillage, kill, rape, and steal his way west, until he came back home to rob a bank, slaughter an innocent man, and finally trip over the marshal's outstretched foot. Now, the folks of Los Santos have one last chance to bid Harlow farewell, from the innocents to whose lives he's shattered to the preacher who can't find it in his heart to pray for him; from the local soiled dove to an old man with a dark secret of his own. And as these citizens tell their stories, they can't help but wonder: why did Harlow Mackleprang go so very wrong—and are some people too evil to really die?"A... Views: 577
An eerie narrative of lost love, Serendipity tells the story of Jake and Rebecca, two colleagues in the Peace Corps who fall in love but ultimately choose their careers over their relationship. After Rebecca's untimely death, Jake inherits her house in rural Kentucky and goes to live there to confront the ghosts of his past...and his present.An eerie narrative of lost love, Serendipity tells the story of Jake and Rebecca, two colleagues in the Peace Corps who fall in love but ultimately choose their careers over their relationship.After Rebecca's untimely death, Jake inherits her house in rural Kentucky and goes to live there to confront the ghosts of his past...and his present.Hair-raising and tantalizing, Serendipity was originally published in the Eureka Literary Magazine in 2004, but is now newly-revised and available in e-book format for the first time. Views: 577
Francis Mahkota had lost one box of sorcerers’ wands during he showed these off to his friends. The caretaker of these wands, Brady demanded him finding them back before one underground organization questioning these losses.The sorcerers’ wands were dead objects. Special charms had been stealthily casted on them by unknown sorcerer to grow out wings on those wands. To make them lively like birdies. It was believed that the wands had flown away into the Forbidden Forest where Francis needed to risk his life and intruded into the untrodden territory. Views: 576
Short story from the Unicorn Witch tales of Refuge.‘IN THE BEGINNING’ Is The First In A Collection Of Short Stories, ‘UNICORN WITCH’S CAULDRON’ Due For Release In The Summer Of 2013 And Featuring The Worlds And Characters You Will Know From The ‘UNICORN WITCH TRILOGY’.The short stories, including this one, whilst complete in themselves, would be better read after reading ‘Unicorn Witch’ Views: 576
