Witness to Change


Book Description

Sybil Morial's autobiography traces her childhood in New Orleans, activism during the Civil Rights Movement, and continuing life of service.




Disappearing Witness


Book Description

In documenting this transformation in American photography, Disappearing Witness forcefully rethinks the history of photography itself.




Witness Tree


Book Description

An intimate look at one majestic hundred-year-old oak tree through four seasons--and the reality of global climate change it reveals. In the life of this one grand oak, we can see for ourselves the results of one hundred years of rapid environmental change. It's leafing out earlier, and dropping its leaves later as the climate warms. Even the inner workings of individual leaves have changed to accommodate more CO2 in our atmosphere. Climate science can seem dense, remote, and abstract. But through the lens of this one tree, it becomes immediate and intimate. In Witness Tree, environmental reporter Lynda V. Mapes takes us through her year living with one red oak at the Harvard Forest. We learn about carbon cycles and leaf physiology, but also experience the seasons as people have for centuries, watching for each new bud, and listening for each new bird and frog call in spring. We savor the cadence of falling autumn leaves, and glory of snow and starry winter nights. Lynda takes us along as she climbs high into the oak's swaying boughs, and scientists core deep into the oak's heartwood, dig into its roots and probe the teeming life of the soil. She brings us eye-level with garter snakes and newts, and alongside the squirrels and jays devouring the oak's acorns. Season by season she reveals the secrets of trees, how they work, and sustain a vast community of lives, including our own. The oak is a living timeline and witness to climate change. While stark in its implications, Witness Tree is a beautiful and lyrical read, rich in detail, sweeps of weather, history, people, and animals. It is a story rooted in hope, beauty, wonder, and the possibility of renewal in people's connection to nature.




Prime Witness: Change and Policy Challenges in Buhariís Nigeria


Book Description

This volume of essays on public policy challenges in the Buhari-led Nigeria is a child of necessity. In 2015 and sixteen years after the PDP assumed the leadership reins in Nigeria, it was evident to all, that Nigeria was not enjoying the best form of governance and purposeful leadership. The strength of government was absolutely lacking. Enter 2015 and the grand alliance and vision of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which claimed to be the only credible alternative capable of upending the PDP and providing Nigeria the much leadership change it desired. Hope about Nigeria's prospects soared with the election of President Muhammadu Buhari. The hope was well founded: it reflected the high expectations generated both by the smooth transfer of power from the Jonathan administration, itself a sign of a maturing democracy, and by the scintillating campaign by candidate Buhari. It did not take long before the Buhari administration confronted the political reality of governance. The governance reality that the Buhari administration faced on assuming the reins of power consisted of his own campaign promises (tackling insecurity, combating corruption, and growing the economy -- with emphasis on reducing unemployment and diversifying the economy); unanticipated crises (resurgence of militancy in the Niger Delta and onset of recession); and self-inflicted injuries (delayed appointment of his cabinet, policy somersaults on foreign exchange policy, and poor management of the recession). Prime Witness Change and Policy Challenges in Buhari's Nigeria is essentially a product of the author's observations, exchanges with his various interlocutors in and out of government, and Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike, during the first year of the Buhari administration, 2015-2016. The decision to put this volume together, and indeed, the compelling reason for articulating the policy recommendations, critiques and views herein, derived in his personal belief that as a member of the Nigerian attentive public, we owed it as a civic duty to our posterity to speak up, regardless of whether anyone is listening. Such undertaking will no doubt, enrich our national conversation of critical issues and in the long run, vindicate us in the eyes of our posterity.




Light For The World To See


Book Description

From NPR correspondent and New York Times bestselling author, Kwame Alexander, comes a powerful and provocative collection of poems that cut to the heart of the entrenched racism and oppression in America and eloquently explores ongoing events. A book in the tradition of James Baldwin’s “A Report from Occupied Territory,” Light for the World to See is a rap session on race. A lyrical response to the struggles of Black lives in our world . . . to America’s crisis of conscience . . . to the centuries of loss, endless resilience, and unstoppable hope. Includes an introduction by the author and a bold, graphically designed interior.




Poetry of Witness: The Tradition in English, 1500-2001


Book Description

A groundbreaking anthology containing the work of poets who have witnessed war, imprisonment, torture, and slavery. A companion volume to Against Forgetting, Poetry of Witness is the first anthology to reveal a tradition that runs through English-language poetry. The 300 poems collected here were composed at an extreme of human endurance—while their authors awaited execution, endured imprisonment, fought on the battlefield, or labored on the brink of breakdown or death. All bear witness to historical events and the irresistibility of their impact. Alongside Shakespeare, Milton, and Wordsworth, this volume includes such writers as Anne Askew, tortured and executed for her religious beliefs during the reign of Henry VIII; Phillis Wheatley, abducted by slave traders; Samuel Bamford, present at the Peterloo Massacre in 1819; William Blake, who witnessed the Gordon Riots of 1780; and Samuel Menashe, survivor of the Battle of the Bulge. Poetry of Witness argues that such poets are a perennial feature of human history, and it presents the best of that tradition, proving that their work ranks alongside the greatest in the language.




Witness


Book Description

The characters in a Vermont town, both adult and children, tell from their perspectives the effect that the Ku Klux Klan has in the town.




Bearing Witness


Book Description

Fracking, the practice of shattering underground rock to release oil and natural gas, is a major driver of climate change. The 300,000 fracking facilities in the US also directly harm the health and livelihoods of people in front-line communities, who are disproportionately poor and people of color. Impacted citizens have for years protested that their rights have been ignored. On May 14, 2018, a respected international human-rights court, the Rome-based Permanent Peoples' Tribunal, began a week-long hearing on the impacts of fracking and climate change on human and Earth rights. In its advisory opinion, the Tribunal ruled that fracking systematically violates substantive and procedural human rights; that governments are complicit in the rights violations; and that to protect human rights and the climate, the practice of fracking should be banned. The case makes history. It revokes the social license of extreme-extraction industries by connecting environmental destruction to human-rights violations. It affirms that climate change, and the extraction techniques that fuel it, directly violate deeply and broadly accepted moral norms encoded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Bearing Witness maps a promising new direction in the ongoing struggle to protect the planet from climate chaos. It tells the story of this landmark case through carefully curated court materials, including searing eye-witness testimony, groundbreaking legal testimony, and the Tribunal's advisory opinion. Essays by leading climate writers such as Winona LaDuke, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and Sandra Steingraber and legal experts such as John Knox, Mary Wood, and Anna Grear give context to the controversy. Framing essays by the editors, experts on climate ethics and human rights, demonstrate that a human-rights focus is a powerful, transformative new tool to address the climate crisis.




Theatre of Witness


Book Description

Exploring diverse human experiences in the US, Poland and Northern Ireland, this book is of interest to practitioners and students of applied theatre, peace and conflict studies, professionals working in conflict resolution, counselors, psychotherapists, professionals in the field of criminal and restorative justice, and spiritual seekers.




The Expert Witness in Construction


Book Description

The role of the expert witness has long been important in the resolution of construction disputes. The specialist opinion brought by the expert can aid understanding and interpretation of the facts of the dispute, and may be influential in deciding the outcome. The variety of dispute resolution procedures and the requirement for the expert witness to be independent places a heavy burden on the parties to identify and instruct an appropriate expert, and on the expert to ensure they discharge their duty in the correct manner. The Expert Witness in Construction explains, in practical terms, the way in which experts work with particular reference to the construction industry. Within this book the Expert's role is explained in legal and practical terms as a progression from understanding the basic principles by which Experts can be identified, through appointment, to giving evidence before a tribunal. At every stage commentary is given to: help and guide professionals new to the arena of expert evidence; act as a resource for those already acting as Experts; assist party representatives looking for best practice guidance on the instruction of Experts; and provide parties to disputes information on what they should expect from the Expert they appoint to explain the issues in the case. Covering all the implications of identifying, appointing, instructing and relying on experts, it will help the reader to understand why experts are instructed in the way they are, how to identify the expert that is right for a particular case and how evidence should be presented. Written by a practicing lawyer and a consultant with extensive experience of acting as an expert witness, the requirements of both the lawyer and expert are discussed. As such, it will help both parties to understand each other resulting in a closer, more productive working relationship.