social conditions

The story of a family and the system of debtors' prisons as symbols of the social and psychological imprisonment of 19th century England.

Through the long, hot summer of 2019, Hong Kong burned. Anti-government protests, sparked by a government proposal to introduce a controversial extradition law, grew into a pro-democracy movement that engulfed the city for months. Protesters fought street battles with police, and the unrest brought the People's Liberation Army to the very doorstep of Hong Kong. Driven primarily by students and youth protesters with their 'Be Water!' philosophy, borrowed from hometown hero Bruce Lee, this leaderless, technology-driven protest movement defied a global superpower and changed Hong Kong, perhaps forever. But it also changed China, and challenged China's global standing. In City on Fire, Antony Dapiran provides the first detailed account of the protests, reveals the protesters' unique tactics, explains how the movement fits into the city's long history of dissent, and looks at what the protests will mean for the future of Hong Kong, China, and China's place in the world.

"An award-winning journalist and longtime Hong Konger indelibly captures the place, its people, and the untold history they are claiming, just as it is being erased. Lim's deeply researched-and deeply personal-account casts often startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations leading to its "return" to China in 1997, the current protests, and the future Beijing seeks to impose. Throughout, it is populated by contemporary figures who, like her, aim to put Hong Kongers at the center of their own story: guerrilla calligraphers, amateur historians and archaeologists, and wending through it all, the King of Kowloon, a mentally ill trash collector, descended from royalty, whose iconic street art both embodied and inspired the unique identity Lim unforgettably conveys-Hong Kong as a place of disappearance and reappearance, power and powerlessness, loss and reclamation, silence and voice"--.

"Park has told the harrowing story of her escape from North Korea as a child many times, but never before [now] has she revealed the most intimate and devastating details of the repressive society she was raised in and the enormous price she paid to escape"--Amazon.com.

"In a place where time is running out, sometimes the most radical act is remembrance. Hong Kong has long been known as a city of extremes: a former colony of the United Kingdom that today exists at the margins of an authoritarian, ascendant China; a cityrocked by mass protests, where residents take to the streets to rally against encroaching threats on their democracy and freedoms. But it is also misunderstood and often romanticized, its history and politics oversimplified in Western headlines. Drawing richly from her own experience, as well as countless interviews with the artists, protestors, students, and writers who have made Hong Kong their home, journalist Karen Cheung gives us an insider's view of this remarkable city, making the case along the way that we should look to Hong Kong as a warning sign for what lies ahead for other global democracies. Coming of age in the wake of Hong Kong's reunification with China in 1997, Cheung traverses the multifold identities available to her in childhood and beyond, whether that was at her English-speaking international schools, where her classmates were often the children of diplomats or corporate officers, or within her deeply traditional family. Along the way, Cheung gives a personal account of what it's like to seek out affordable housing and mental healthcare in one of the world's most expensive cities. She also takes us into Hong Kong's vibrant indie music and literary scenes--youth-driven spaces of creative resistance. Inevitably, Cheung brings us withher to the protests, where her understanding of what it means to belong to Hong Kong finally crystallized"--.

" Make way for Malala Yousafzai! It's Malala like you've never seen her before!Using a unique mix of first-person narrative, hilarious comic panels, and essential facts, Dean Robbins introduces young readers to an activist and trailblazer. The third book in the exciting You Are a Star nonfiction series, You Are a Star, Malala Yousafzai focuses on Malala's lifelong mission to bring educational equality and justice to all - especially young girls.Maithili Joshi's spot-on comic illustrations bring this icon to life, and backmatter instructs readers on how to be more like Malala!"--.

In order to cut off their enemies' lifelines, the Phantomhive staff has scattered in all directions. To the north, Mey-Rin, having infiltrated Baron Heathfield's manor, engages in battle with the masterful maid, Jane! Meanwhile, in the east, at a sanatorium for veterans, Baldo and Lau receive a rough welcome from the nurse celebrated as a miracle healer...

"A stunning graphic memoir of a childhood in Cuba, coming to America on the Mariel boatlift, and a defense of democracy, here and there Hailed for his iconic art on the cover of Time and on jumbotrons around the world, Edel Rodriguez is among the most prominent political artists of our age. Now for the first time, he draws his own life, revisiting his childhood in Cuba and his family's passage on the infamous Mariel boatlift. When Edel was nine, Fidel Castro announced his surprising decision to let 125,000 traitors of the revolution, or "worms," leave the country. The faltering economy and Edel's family's vocal discomfort with government surveillance had made their daily lives on a farm outside Havana precarious, and they secretly planned to leave. But before that happened, a dozen soldiers confiscated their home and property and imprisoned them in a detention center near the port of Mariel, where they were held with dissidents and criminals before being marched to a flotilla that miraculously deposited them, overnight, in Florida. Through vivid, stirring art, Worm tells a story of a boyhood in the midst of the Cold War, a family's displacement in exile, and their tenacious longing for those they left behind. It also recounts the coming-of-age of an artist and activist, who, witnessing American's turn from democracy to extremism, struggles to differentiate his adoptive country from the dictatorship he fled. Confronting questions of patriotism and the liminal nature of belonging, Edel Rodriguez ultimately celebrates the immigrants, maligned and overlooked, who guard and invigorate American freedom"--.

Adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple who remind him that he is not a real member of their family, Cyril embarks on a journey to find himself and where he came from, discovering his identity, a home, a country, and much more throughout a long lifetime.

"For years, the Chinese government had persecuted the Uyghur people, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China. In 2017, the repression assumed a terrifying new scale as the government established an all-seeing high-tech surveillance state. Before long, more than a million people had vanished into a vast network of internment camps. Tahir Hamut Izgil was no stranger to persecution. In 1996, he was arrested trying to leave China, tortured until he confessed to fabricated charges, and sent to a labor camp. But he could never have predicted the government's radical solution to the Uyghur question two decades later. After the mass internment of Uyghurs began, Tahir watched his neighborhood empty out and knew the police would be coming for him soon. 'Waiting to Be Arrested at Night' is the story of the political, social, and cultural destruction of Tahir's homeland. Among leading Uyghur intellectuals, he is the only one known to have escaped China since the mass internments began. His book is a call for the world to awaken to the catastrophe and a tribute to his fellow Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced"--Provided by publisher.