Knowledge = Power

Andrei Lankov has gone where few  outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived  as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it  for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts  to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea,  Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric  surrounding this opaque police state. After providing an accessible  history of the nation, he turns his focus to what North Korea is, what  its leadership thinks, and how its people cope with living in such an  oppressive and poor place. He argues that North Korea is not irrational,  and nothing shows this better than its continuing survival against all  odds. A living political fossil, it clings to existence in the face of  limited resources and a zombie economy, manipulating great powers  despite its weakness. Its leaders are not ideological zealots or madmen,  but perhaps the best practitioners of Machiavellian politics that can  be found in the modern world. Even though they preside over a failed  state, they have successfully used diplomacy - including nuclear threats  - to extract support from other nations. But while the people in charge  have been ruthless and successful in holding on to power, Lankov goes  on to argue that this cannot continue forever, since the old system is  slowly falling apart. In the long run, with or without reform, the  regime is unsustainable. Lankov contends that reforms, if attempted,  will trigger a dramatic implosion of the regime. They will not prolong  its existence. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive.

Translated by W. E. D. Rouse, The March of the Ten Thousand is  one of the most admired and widely read pieces of ancient literature to  come down to us. Xenophon employs a very simple, straightforward style  to describe what is probably the most exciting military adventure ever  undertaken. When Cyrus, brother to the Great King of Persia, attempts to  overthrow his feckless sibling in 401 B.C., he employs a Greek  mercenary army of 10,000 hoplites as the core of his rebellious force.  Xenophon, who seeks the advice of Socrates before joining, is among the  common soldiers. Inexorably, Cyrus and his huge army march southward  1,500 miles from the coast of Ionia all the way to Babylon, and there  give battle to Artaxerxes, the Great King. Although the battle is soon  decided in favor of Cyrus, the would-be usurper is killed while in  pursuit of the king. Meanwhile, the Greeks are victorious on their part  of the battlefield and await the return of Cyrus and his instructions. By  the next morning, they realize that Cyrus is dead and that his allies  have melted away in the night, leaving them alone trapped behind enemy  lines within a few miles of the Persian capital. And only a few miles  distant lies an enormous Persian army with vengeance in mind. Despair  deepens when the Greek officer corps is treacherously murdered during  peace talks. Alone, leaderless and hopelessly outnumbered, the Greeks  nevertheless elect new officers. Xenophon steps into the pages of  history with his magnificent rallying speeches and selfless acts of  courage. Follow one of history's most spirited bands of soldiers as they  fight and maneuver their way through 1,500 miles of hostile territory  seething with adversaries. It is an epic of courage, faith and  democratic principle.

Widely recognized as the best biography of the Prophet (peace and  blessings of Allah be upon him) in English, Dr. Martin Lings'  award-winning book is now available in audio, read by well-known  narrator Sean Barrett. This excellent audiobook is the first of its kind  and has been selected by a number of organizations as a worthy  introduction to the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of  Allah be upon him), including Muslim Welfare House, London, and the  Muslim Council of Britain.

Until about 1800, the West and the Islamic realm were like two adjacent,  parallel universes, each assuming itself to be the center of the world  while ignoring the other. As Europeans colonized the globe, the two  world histories intersected and the Western narrative drove the other  one under. The West hardly noticed, but the Islamic world found the  encounter profoundly disrupting. This book reveals the parallel  "other" narrative of world history to help us make sense of today's  world conflicts. Ansary traces the history of the Muslim world from pre-Mohammedan days through 9/11, introducing people, events, empires,  legends, and religious disputes, both in terms of what happened and how  it was understood and interpreted.

In Strategy: A History, Sir Lawrence Freedman, one of the world's  leading authorities on war and international politics, captures the  vast history of strategic thinking, in a consistently engaging and  insightful account of how strategy came to pervade every aspect of our  lives. The range of Freedman's narrative is extraordinary, moving from  the surprisingly advanced strategy practiced in primate groups, to the  opposing strategies of Achilles and Odysseus in The Iliad, the  strategic advice of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli, the great military  innovations of Baron Henri de Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz, the  grounding of revolutionary strategy in class struggles by Marx, the  insights into corporate strategy found in Peter Drucker and Alfred  Sloan, and the contributions of the leading social scientists working on  strategy today. The core issue at the heart of strategy, the author  notes, is whether it is possible to manipulate and shape our environment  rather than simply become the victim of forces beyond one's control.  Time and again, Freedman demonstrates that the inherent unpredictability  of this environment - subject to chance events, the efforts of  opponents, the missteps of friends - provides strategy with its  challenge and its drama. Armies or corporations or nations rarely move  from one predictable state of affairs to another, but instead feel their  way through a series of states, each one not quite what was  anticipated, requiring a reappraisal of the original strategy, including  its ultimate objective. Thus the picture of strategy that emerges in  this book is one that is fluid and flexible, governed by the starting  point, not the end point. A brilliant overview of the most prominent  strategic theories in history, from David's use of deception against  Goliath, to the modern use of game theory in economics, this masterful  volume sums up a lifetime of reflection on strategy.

Now in trade paperback, a gripping exploration of the fall of Constantinople and its connection to the world we live in today The fall of Constantinople in 1453 signaled a shift in history, and the  end of the Byzantium Empire. Roger Crowley's readable and comprehensive  account of the battle between Mehmed II, sultan of the Ottoman Empire,  and Constantine XI, the 57th emperor of Byzantium, illuminates the  period in history that was a precursor to the current jihad between the  West and the Middle East.

William Shakespeare's gripping  play showed Caesar's assassination to be an amateur and idealistic  affair. The real killing, however, was a carefully planned paramilitary  operation, a generals' plot put together by Caesar's disaffected  officers and designed with precision. Brutus and Cassius were indeed key  players, but they had the help of a third man - Decimus. He was the  mole in Caesar's entourage, one of Caesar's leading generals, and a  lifelong friend. It was he, not Brutus, who truly betrayed Caesar. Caesar's  assassins saw him as a military dictator who wanted to be king. He  threatened a permanent change in the Roman way of life and in the power  of senators. The assassins rallied support among the common people, but  they underestimated Caesar's soldiers, who flooded Rome. The assassins  were vanquished; their beloved Republic became the Roman Empire.

From a renowned historian comes a  groundbreaking narrative of humanity's creation and evolution - a number  one international best seller - that explores the ways in which biology  and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it  means to be "human". One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one - Homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us? Most  books about the history of humanity pursue either a historical or a  biological approach, but Dr. Yuval Noah Harari breaks the mold with this  highly original book that begins about 70,000 years ago, with the  appearance of modern cognition. From examining the role evolving humans  have played in the global ecosystem to charting the rise of empires, Sapiens integrates history and science to reconsider accepted narratives,  connect past developments with contemporary concerns, and examine  specific events within the context of larger ideas. Dr. Harari  also compels us to look ahead, because, over the last few decades,  humans have begun to bend laws of natural selection that have governed  life for the past four billion years. We are acquiring the ability to  design not only the world around us but also ourselves. Where is this  leading us, and what do we want to become? This provocative and  insightful work is sure to spark debate and is essential for aficionados  of Jared Diamond, James Gleick, Matt Ridley, Robert Wright, and Sharon  Moalem.

In Masters of Command, Barry Strauss compares the way the  three greatest generals of the ancient world waged war and draws lessons  from their experiences that apply on and off the battlefield. ALEXANDER,  HANNIBAL, CAESAR—each was a master of war. Each had to look beyond the  battlefield to decide whom to fight, when, and why; to know what victory  was and when to end the war; to determine how to bring stability to the  lands he conquered. Each general had to be a battlefield tactician and  more: a statesman, a strategist, a leader. Tactics change,  weapons change, but war itself remains much the same throughout the  centuries, and a great warrior must know how to define success.  Understanding where each of these three great (but flawed) commanders  succeeded and failed can serve anyone who wants to think strategically  or who has to demonstrate leadership. In Masters of Command Barry  Strauss explains the qualities these great generals shared, the keys to  their success, from ambition and judgment to leadership itself.

Cicero How to Win Elections & How to Run a Country