The DJ Who “Brought Down” the USSR


Book Description

Of the many Cold War radio DJs who broadcast to the USSR, Seva Novgorodsev must be near the top of the list. A masterful BBC presenter, Seva was considered a sage of rock ‘n’ roll. His programs introduced forbidden western popular music and culture into the USSR, rendering him an “enemy voice” and ideological saboteur to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Despite KGB threats and constant media pillorying, Seva remained on the air for 38 years, acquiring millions of listeners all across the breadth of the USSR and beyond. He became a cult phenomenon, dismantling the Soviet way of life in the hearts and minds of youth. This is the story of Russia’s first and best-known DJ.







The DJ who "brought Down" the USSR


Book Description

"Of the many Cold War radio DJs who broadcast to the USSR, Seva Novgorodsev must be near the top of the list. A masterful BBC presenter, Seva was considered a sage of rock 'n' roll. His programs introduced forbidden western popular music and culture into the USSR, rendering him an "enemy voice" and ideological saboteur to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Despite KGB threats and constant media pillorying, Seva remained on the air for 38 years, acquiring millions of listeners all across the breadth of the USSR and beyond. He became a cult phenomenon, dismantling the Soviet way of life in the hearts and minds of youth. This is the story of Russia's first and best-known DJ"--




Reputational Security


Book Description

We are living in turbulent times, witnessing renewed international conflict, resurgent nationalism, declining multilateralism, and a torrent of hostile propaganda. How are we to understand these developments and conduct diplomacy in their presence? Nicholas J. Cull, the distinguished historian of propaganda, revisits the international media campaigns of the past in the light of the challenges of the present. His concept of Reputational Security deftly links issues of national image and outreach to the deepest needs of any state, rescuing them from the list of low-priority optional extras to which they are so often consigned in the West. Reputational Security, he argues, comes from being known and appreciated in the world. With clarity and determination, Cull considers core tasks, approaches, and opportunities available for international actors today, including counterpropaganda, media development, diaspora diplomacy, cultural work, and – perhaps most surprisingly of all – media disarmament. This book is crucial for all who care about responding to the threat of malign media disruption, revitalizing international cooperation, and establishing the Reputational Security we and our allies need to survive and flourish. Reputational Security is enlightening reading for students and scholars of public diplomacy, international relations, security studies, communications, and media, as well as practitioners.




Russia and the Information Revolution


Book Description

This work, the result of a six-year study, sheds light on Russia's role in the global Information Revolution. It examines Russia's increasing reliance on information and communications technologies (IT) to improve its government institutions, modernize business and industry and stimulate economic growth, broaden information access, and enhance the quality of life for Russian people. The author examines Russia's emerging IT sector, how businesses in Russia are seeking to use IT to enhance productivity and profitability, the impact of IT on government, and the course of the Information Revolution in Russian society.




Stalin's Curse


Book Description

A chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives—and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire—during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West. At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Joseph Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader, whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, and not communist ideology. Now, using recently uncovered documents, Robert Gellately conclusively shows that, in fact, the dictator was biding his time, determined to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond. His actions during those years—and the poorly calculated responses to them from the West—set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of Stalin’s Kremlin.




Essays in Honour of Judge Taslim Olawale Elias


Book Description

Text no. 1: The variety of topics covered and the quality of the contributors make these two volumes a necessary part of any law library in the world. The essays are designed to overlap in the well-tested and established fields and branches of law dealing with contemporary issues which lawyers, diplomats, political scientists, politicians and research scholars are familiar with. The essays fully demonstrate the depth of knowledge of the eminent professors and specialists who have written them. The two volumes of essays are divided into seven parts. Volume One, entitled Contemporary International Law and Human Rights, focuses essentially on subjects relating to International Law and is divided into three sections. Part one of the first volume encompasses Topics in International Law such as Some New Thoughts on the Codification of International Law by his Excellency Judge Roberto Ago; Evidence in the Procedure of the International Court of Justice: The Role of the Court by His Excellency Judge Manfred Lachs; The Validity of International Law: an Empirical Experiment by Professor Georg Schwarzenberger, with a particularly engaging and incisive Introduction to the two volumes of Essays by Professor Ian Brownlie, Q.C. Human rights subjects still hold pride of place in the thinking of many legal experts and scholars and that is clearly reflected here. The title of the second volume is African Law and Comparative Public Law. Part Five of the essays contains topics of interest in the African Legal system which has its roots in the British Common Law System. Constitutional Law is broadly covered in part six which forms a section of its own in Volume Two. Text no. 2: This Festschrift pays tribute to Judge Taslim Olawale Elias, the leading African exponent of International Law to date. The two volumes of essays are divided into seven parts. The first volume focuses essentially on subjects relating to International Law and is divided into three sections. Part one of the first volume encompasses Topics in International Law such as Some New Thoughts on the Codification of International Law by His Excellency Judge Roberto Ago; Evidence in the Procedure of the International Court of Justice: The Role of the Court by His Excellency Jugde Manfred Lachs; The Validity of International Law: an Empirical Experiment by Professor Georg Schwarzenberger, with a particularly engaging and incisive Introduction to the two volumes of Essays by Professor Ian Brownlie, Q.C. Human Rights subjects still hold the pride of place in the thinking of many legal experts and scholars which is clearly reflected here. The title of the second volume is African Law and Comparative Public Law. Part five of the essays contains topics of interest in African Legal system which took its roots from the British Common Law System. Constitutional Law is bloadly covered in part six which forms a section of its own in volume two. Quite apart from the variety of topics covered in this festschrift, the quality of the contributors to it, makes the whole exercise a necessary part of an important collection of any law library in the world. The framework of the essays suggest that they are designed to overlap in the well-tested and established field of law and those branches of law dealing with contemporary issues which lawyers, diplomats, political scientists, politicians and research scholars are familiar with. The richness of the festschrift is m.




Popular Mechanics


Book Description

Popular Mechanics inspires, instructs and influences readers to help them master the modern world. Whether it’s practical DIY home-improvement tips, gadgets and digital technology, information on the newest cars or the latest breakthroughs in science -- PM is the ultimate guide to our high-tech lifestyle.




Coding Democracy


Book Description

Hackers as vital disruptors, inspiring a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens take back democracy. Hackers have a bad reputation, as shady deployers of bots and destroyers of infrastructure. In Coding Democracy, Maureen Webb offers another view. Hackers, she argues, can be vital disruptors. Hacking is becoming a practice, an ethos, and a metaphor for a new wave of activism in which ordinary citizens are inventing new forms of distributed, decentralized democracy for a digital era. Confronted with concentrations of power, mass surveillance, and authoritarianism enabled by new technology, the hacking movement is trying to “build out” democracy into cyberspace. Webb travels to Berlin, where she visits the Chaos Communication Camp, a flagship event in the hacker world; to Silicon Valley, where she reports on the Apple-FBI case, the significance of Russian troll farms, and the hacking of tractor software by desperate farmers; to Barcelona, to meet the hacker group XNet, which has helped bring nearly 100 prominent Spanish bankers and politicians to justice for their role in the 2008 financial crisis; and to Harvard and MIT, to investigate the institutionalization of hacking. Webb describes an amazing array of hacker experiments that could dramatically change the current political economy. These ambitious hacks aim to displace such tech monoliths as Facebook and Amazon; enable worker cooperatives to kill platforms like Uber; give people control over their data; automate trust; and provide citizens a real say in governance, along with capacity to reach consensus. Coding Democracy is not just another optimistic declaration of technological utopianism; instead, it provides the tools for an urgently needed upgrade of democracy in the digital era.




AB Bookman's Weekly


Book Description




Recent Books