A World Gone Normal

?Scream or yell and I kill you now.? The masked man said in a deep and gruff voice. I wasn't sure who it was, but I knew it was a male by his voice. He held a knife at my throat and was on top of me. ?You can make this easy or you can make this hard. That is up to you.? He undid my slacks that I was wearing and pulled them down around my ankles. He then grabbed my panties and ripped them off. I am sure he tossed them somewhere, he wasn't too worried about where they had landed. I felt a surge of fear come over me when I realized what was happening and about to happen to me. I was going to be a rape victim! I didn't want to struggle for fear of him stabbing me with the knife he held, either by accident or on purpose. I couldn't scream for fear he might kill me. All I could do was hope that a passerby would see us, but I knew that wouldn't be possible. He had pulled me deep into the ally where it was dark. I heard some trash cans rattling and I was hoping that maybe it was a homeless person looking for food and saw what was happening. But my hopes were dashed when I realized it was a couple of alley cats that began to fight with each other. The irony of it was that it was a male cat trying to have sex with a female cat and she was putting up a fight. Probably a better one than I was I bet. Two potential rapes in one alley. How ironic is that? I found myself getting lost in my own thoughts when suddenly the man on top of me went limp. No, not his male part, I mean his whole body. Then someone rolled him off of me. It was too dark to make out who it was, but a street light lit up his face, it was Douglas! The knife went flying to one side and Douglas and Mrs. James? son were soon in a scuffle. I didn't know where my panties were, but I was able to pull up my pants. My purse was nowhere to be found, which had my cell phone in it.

A penetrating take on how our planet would respond without the relentless pressure of the human presence

Alaska, 2018, and Mike is a long way from home, nursing a wrecked knee and an unspoken grief, striking out into real estate and parenting his partner’s son. London, 1978, and Simon is an Australian fish out of water navigating adolescence during the Winter of Discontent, and drawn to an eccentric impresario next door. Washington, DC, 1928, and a retired US senator is interviewed about his time in Russia in 1916, and his mission to save a young heir to an empire. Vienna, 1809, and an Irish teenager on the run from the law takes refuge among composers as Napoleon besieges and shells the city. Hong Kong, 2019, and estranged brothers Mike and Simon reunite in midlife to face the secrets of the past, and reconnect in more ways than one. Empires rise and fall, human lives play out, encounters, collisions and connections occur more than we can ever know – and yet, the unexpected can still happen. Endlessly compelling and inventive, Empires is a masterful novel in five parts with boys and men at its heart. Spanning centuries and crossing continents, it explores the empires we build, the way we see ourselves, the narratives we construct and the interconnectedness of all things. This is Nick Earls at his finest.

This book aims to portray migratory experiences, documented in the form of biographical narratives. We are interested in the dynamic aspect of migration, which effectively becomes a complex trajectory, made up of stages, returns, and circulations and no longer simply, as in the industrial era, a bipolar exile (there and here). In these complex and dynamic movements, many trajectories become bifurcations, by which we mean shifting fates. In these stories we found paths, events, and bifurcations, all combined together, in terms of biographical construction based on accumulated experiences. These narratives are both very banal and very unusual journeys, portraying a new international human globalization. They are simultaneously stories of barriers to be crossed in chaotic situations interspersed with peaceful events in quiet contexts. These journeys reveal not only the weight of migration policies, but also the certification policies implemented and developed by various countries. This book presents itineraries, social logics of mobility; the routes become the analysts. If statistics record regularities, the personal approach captures specificities that produce meaning and contribute to a reinterpretation of current forms of mobility. “The superb collection of ethnographies that the reader will find in the pages to follow provide yet further insight into the ways in which movement across state borders represents a creative accomplishment. With cases selected from around the world – the Middle East, North Africa, Latin America, North America, and Europe – the chapter in this book demonstrate that migration is undertaken not only against states and their bureaucracies, but in tension with and possibly in opposition to migrants’ closest associates – precisely the people whom social capital theory paints as the font of the resources that make migration possible. ” – Roger Waldinger, University of California Los Angeles, USA Contents Foreword – Roger Waldinger Introduction – Víctor Zúñiga, Kamel Doraï, Delphine Mercier, and Michel Peraldi Part One: Migrant Families and Their Re-configuration Chinese Migrant Women Creating Meaningful Lives Despite Vulnerable Statuses – Hélène Le Bail Conflict and Migration from Iraq: Building a Life in Exile Amid the Twists and Turns of a Dramatic History – Cyril Roussel From Family Dispersion to Asylum-Seeking: Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon and Syria – Kamel Doraï Part Two: Children’s Movements Across Borders A left-behind child from El Alto. Protection Strategies and Redefinition of Kinship Ties for the Children of Migrant Women in Bolivia – Robin Cavagnoud Journey to the Ordinary “Integration” of an Undocumented Moroccan Migrant in France – Mustapha El Miri Children Circulating Between the United States and Mexico – Víctor Zúñiga and Betsabé Román-González Part Three: From Adventure to Waiting: Emancipation of Restricted Trajectories Life While Waiting: Experiencing the Asylum Application in France – Carolina Kobelinsky A Family Resemblance: Migration, Work and Loyalty – Frédéric Décosse ‘Suzana’s choices’ Working in the maquiladoras, migrating to survive and living transnationally – Delphine Mercier Part Four: From Expatriate to Migrant? From “Expats” to migrants: Mano’s worlds in Marrakesh – Michel Peraldi The Aeronautical Engineer in Flight: Turbulence and the Capacity for Agency Across Borders – Alfredo Hualde Being a Doctor Over Here or Over There Collective action: the foundation of the capacity for agency in the migratory process? – Ariel Mendez Conclusion: Uncertainty, Anticipated – Deborah A. Boehm

Kristen Block examines the entangled histories of Spain and England in the Caribbean during the long seventeenth century, focusing on colonialism's two main goals: the search for profit and the call to Christian dominance. Using the stories of ordinary people, Block illustrates how engaging with the powerful rhetoric and rituals of Christianity was central to survival. Isobel Criolla was a runaway slave in Cartagena who successfully lobbied the Spanish governor not to return her to an abusive mistress. Nicolas Burundel was a French Calvinist who served as henchman to the Spanish governor of Jamaica before his arrest by the Inquisition for heresy. Henry Whistler was an English sailor sent to the Caribbean under Oliver Cromwell's plan for holy war against Catholic Spain. Yaff and Nell were slaves who served a Quaker plantation owner, Lewis Morris, in Barbados. Seen from their on-the-ground perspective, the development of modern capitalism, race, and Christianity emerges as a story of negotiation, contingency, humanity, and the quest for community. Ordinary Lives in the Early Caribbean works in both a comparative and an integrative Atlantic world frame, drawing on archival sources from Spain, England, Barbados, Colombia, and the United States. It pushes the boundaries of how historians read silences in the archive, asking difficult questions about how self-censorship, anxiety, and shame have shaped the historical record. The book also encourages readers to expand their concept of religious history beyond a focus on theology, ideals, and pious exemplars to examine the communal efforts of pirates, smugglers, slaves, and adventurers who together shaped the Caribbean's emerging moral economy.

The New York Times bestseller from CNN Political Commentator and 2020 former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, this thought-provoking and prescient call-to-action outlines the urgent steps America must take, including Universal Basic Income (UBI), to stabilize our economy amid rapid technological change and automation. The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future--now. One recent estimate predicts 45 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next twelve years--jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant. The consequences of these trends are already being felt across our communities in the form of political unrest, drug use, and other social ills. The future looks dire-but is it unavoidable? In The War on Normal People, Yang imagines a different future--one in which having a job is distinct from the capacity to prosper and seek fulfillment. At this vision's core is Universal Basic Income, the concept of providing all citizens with a guaranteed income-and one that is rapidly gaining popularity among forward-thinking politicians and economists. Yang proposes that UBI is an essential step toward a new, more durable kind of economy, one he calls "human capitalism."

When a Martian spacecraft lands on Woking Common, mankind is terrorized by aliens in tall, armored capsules which stalk the countryside on three legs. The machines wreak havoc on London and the Southern Counties, and survivors are driven underground. Scientist John Nicholson tells how he was plunged into a paralyzing nightmare of stark terror, savage madness and utter destruction.

Peter Bayer was seventy-three. He’d taught at the school just up the road for most of his life and, when the wall came down, saw no reason to move. Nobody could say life had been easy, and when it was built, he’d lost contact with many friends, but he’d learnt to enjoy life as best he could and had had the good fortune of a happy marriage to Elsa. It’s 2006. Peter Bayer and his wife, Elsa, live on the East side of Berlin, as they’ve always done, even when that wasn’t an attractive proposition. What limits Peter’s freedom nowadays isn’t a concrete wall but often feels like one. Elsa has dementia and barely recognises him, so his life is not only hard work, but it’s lonely. What makes it lonelier is that his wife’s illness has given her a distorted view of the past and one that would horrify the woman he married. When Helen, a recently widowed English woman, rents the flat Peter owns nearby, he experiences the kinds of conversations that used to be normal for him, which makes his current reality all the more painful. Helen’s come to Berlin to find out more about her husband’s past in the city and learns things from their German friends that she was unaware of when he was alive. During her struggle to come to terms with her present life, Helen sees that the terrible demands on Peter’s life are almost impossible to endure. Other stories in the book show the toll of war, as fear is passed from one generation to another and we see how the power of secrecy never disappears. They also reveal how gratitude can take various forms and how intergenerational friendships really are all they’re cracked up to be. The Writing on the Wall and Other Stories is a collection of tales, spanning the 1980s to the present day, that will appeal to fans of Anne Tyler, Alan Bennett and Alice Munro, whom Penny Edwards takes inspiration from.