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SOLD by Patricia McCormick *WISHLISTED BOOK UNPOSTABLE ( Notes on about 15 pages) & is ALSO a Paperback ARC* KINGMAKER'S: The Invention of the Modern Middle East by Karl E. Meyer & Shareen Blair Brysac *Paperback ARC* 1 FREE with Paperback Order from My Bookshelf - OR BOTH for 1 CREDIT - JUST be sure to PM me! Take Care, Lisa
From Booklist
Lakshmi, 13, knows nothing about the world beyond her village shack in the Himalayas of Nepal, and when her family loses the little it has in a monsoon, she grabs a chance to work as a maid in the city so she can send money back home. What she doesn't know is that her stepfather has sold her into prostitution. She ends up in a brothel far across the border in the slums of Calcutta, locked up, beaten, starved, drugged, raped, "torn and bleeding," until she submits. In beautiful clear prose and free verse that remains true to the child's viewpoint, first-person, present-tense vignettes fill in Lakshmi's story. The brutality and cruelty are ever present ("I have been beaten here, / locked away, / violated a hundred times / and a hundred times more"), but not sensationalized. An unexpected act of kindness is heartbreaking ("I do not know a word / big enough to hold my sadness"). One haunting chapter brings home the truth of "Two Worlds": the workers love watching The Bold and the Beautiful on TV though in the real world, the world they know, a desperate prostitute may be approached to sell her own child. An unforgettable account of sexual slavery as it exists now.
Kingmakers: The Invention of the Modern Middle East
Other Versions of this Book: Paperback Book Description:
A brilliant narrative history tracing today's troubles back to grandiose imperial overreach of Great Britain and the United States.
Kingmakers is the story of how the modern Middle East came to be, told through the lives of the Britons and Americans who shaped it. Some are famous (Lawrence of Arabia and Gertrude Bell); others infamous (Harry St. John Philby, father of Kim); some forgotten (Sir Mark Sykes, Israel's godfather, and A. T. Wilson, the territorial creator of Iraq); some controversial (the CIA's Miles Copeland and the Pentagon's Paul Wolfowitz). All helped enthrone rulers in a region whose very name is an Anglo-American invention. As a bonus, we meet the British Empire's power couple, Lord and Lady Lugard (Flora Shaw): she named Nigeria, he ruled it; she used the power of the Times of London to attempt a regime change in the gold-rich Transvaal. The narrative is character-driven, and the aim is to restore to life the colorful figures who for good or ill gave us the Middle East in which Americans are enmeshed today. 30 illustrations; 2 maps. Last Edited on: 8/24/10 2:39 AM ET - Total times edited: 2 |
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