The Hollow Kingdom
₨ 995
ISIS and the CULT of JIHAD
Rs.995.00
DESCRIPTION
Governments across the world openly acknowledge the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as one of the greatest terrorist threats in history, greater even than Al Qaeda, which first set light to a global jihad. Never before has there been such a wealth of information, propaganda and counter-propaganda available on the subject, especially on the Internet. And yet, in all the noise, there’s confusion. This book draws on thorough research and rare interviews to deconstruct the founding ideology of ISIS and chart its growth: how it recruits, using the Dark Web to indoctrinate the disaffected and the emotionally vulnerable across the world; how it has spread globally, using violence as theatre and making secret pacts with cynical governments; and how it finances itself—through sale of oil, extortion and slave trade. The book also examines how this terrorist state is being dismantled by an unlikely coalition of forces from the Middle East and the West, even as it warns that the nationalist chauvinism and economic protectionism sweeping the world today could provide new fuel to ISIS and its ideology.
Rigorous and insightful, The Hollow Kingdom is a necessary read—a compelling mix of research and reportage.
Publisher: Folio Books
Binding: Paperback
Publishing date: June 2018
Pages: 264
Availability: Pre-order
Folio Suggests
Seventy Four
₨ 395A Novel
by Faraz Talat
Rs. 395
DESCRIPTION
A diabetic microbiologist turns 73 in a world that rejects the elderly, denying them healthcare in accordance with the draconian ‘Second Chance’ laws set in place after the Great Pandemic. When an opportunity arises to challenge this rule, her brother does whatever he must to make sure she lives to see her next birthday.
REVIEWS:
“A post pandemic story written way before the pandemic. A haunting little book about second chances, last days and human relations that survive the unsurvivable.”
Mohammed Hanif, author of A Case of Exploding Mangoes
“Any culture’s science fiction is its dream of what its future could be. Now we live in a global culture, and Faraz Talat’s Seventy Four shoots right to the heart of all our current fears and hopes. It’s an intense experience, poignant and memorable.”
Kim Stan Robinson, author of Blue Mars
“Scientists become saviors in times of plague, but their attempts to exert control over pathogens and politics go awry in Faraz Talat’s science fiction novella Seventy Four. Razia Ntikoladze, eminent scientist and Pakistani emigree, is locked in a race against a deadly new contagion and her own mortality; before she can save the world, she has to escape the colloquium’s merciless eugenics project. A daringly brilliant literary experiment which pits humanity against its own worst enemy—itself.”
Bina Shah, author of Before She Sleeps
Rights: World
Womansplaining
₨ 995Navigating activism, politics and modernity in Pakistan
Edited by Sherry Rehman
Rs.995
DECRIPTION
As we enter a new century, with its promise of change, women in Pakistan often emerge as its best face forward. At the same time, a persistent and growing trendline of disadvantage and discrimination throws up a harsh counterfactual to the motivating success stories. Knitting these skeins together is the complex, long, often untold tale of women who think, speak, act and give up a part of their comfort zone to push the rights agenda, to take on the architecture of patriarchy and extremism or to call out resurgent misogynies. This is a book about these women, by these women, for the women who struggle to find a voice.
This anthology of essays attempts to do two things. It seeks first to provide testament and context to women’s activism through the lived experience and voices of pioneers who not just headlined the rights struggle in Pakistan, but also gave it intellectual meaning and moral quest. In this endeavour, this book looks to capture a repository of important voices in order to create a slice of memory. The second idea motivating this collection is to probe the connection between the fairly coherent movement of the 1980s to the post-millennial activism that is challenging norms and pushing the boundaries of patriarchy today. Without forcing a grand narrative on the essays, a selection of younger writers uses this space to grapple with persistent barriers reified by the state, while speaking to new problems that tag on to new opportunities. These young women seek to add their voices to the changing face of women’s activism in contemporary Pakistan, while building a new vocabulary to address emerging challenges.
REVIEWS
“This book is a must-read. It shines a light on the potential of Pakistani women. I am awed and inspired by the sheer range of innovative thought and by the commitment to activism demonstrated by this anthology.”
-Malala Yousafzai, Nobel Prize Laureate
“Combining powerful voices from the multiple arenas, histories and strategies of the women’s struggle in Pakistan, Sherry Rehman has curated an original and enabling resource for everyone working for women’s rights and dignity across the Global South.”
-Ahdaf Soueif, Author, Cairo: My City, Our Revolution
“Like a loudspeaker, this book has amplified the voices of all kinds of women, involved in all kinds of struggles. This book is saying loudly and clearly that Pakistani women, be they rural or urban, economically poor or rich, will not stop thinking, speaking and challenging injustice.”
-Kamla Bhasin, Feminist, Poet and Author, Exploring Masculinity
“Wide-ranging and illuminating, this collection is a necessary read for anyone who wants to understand Pakistan and/or the tug of war between patriarchal oppression and feminist resistance.”
-Kamila Shamsie, Author, Home Fire
Edition: 1st
Publisher: Folio Books
Weight in kg: 0.5
Release date: March 28, 2021
Rights: World
Binding: Hardback
Pages: 280
Pakistan’s Political Parties
₨ 1,495Surviving between Dictatorship and Democracy
Edited by Mariam Mufti, Sahar Shafqat, and Niloufer Siddiqui
Rs. 1495
DESCRIPTION
Pakistan’s 2018 general elections marked the second successful transfer of power from one elected civilian government to another—a remarkable achievement considering the country’s history of dictatorial rule. Pakistan’s Political Parties examines how the civilian side of the state’s current regime has survived the transition to democracy, providing critical insight into the evolution of political parties in Pakistan and their role in developing democracies in general.Pakistan’s numerous political parties span the ideological spectrum, as well as represent diverse regional, ethnic, and religious constituencies. The essays in this volume explore the way in which these parties both contend and work with Pakistan’s military-bureaucratic establishment to assert and expand their power. Researchers use interviews, surveys, data, and ethnography to illuminate the internal dynamics and motivations of these groups and the mechanisms through which they create policy and influence state and society.
Pakistan’s Political Parties is a one-of-a-kind resource for diplomats, policymakers, journalists, and scholars searching for a comprehensive overview of Pakistan’s party system and its unlikely survival against an interventionist military, with insights that extend far beyond the region.
REVIEWS
“This is truly an important contribution to the literature on political parties and electoral considerations in Pakistan. There is nothing like it that currently exists.”
—Charles H. Kennedy, professor, Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director, Middle East and South Asia Program, Wake Forest University
“This is a long overdue, but essential, contribution to our understanding of Pakistan. With an impressive author list, this will become the go-to book on understanding political parties in Pakistan’s hybrid regime.”
—Katharine Adeney, Director of the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute
“Pakistan’s Political Parties is a timely and vital contribution to the social science literature on political parties in south Asia . . . . It presents an exceptionally lucid and well-crafted analysis of major political parties in Pakistan, their role and functions in a nascent democracy, and the relationship of political parties to other institutions.”
—Kavita Khory, Professor of Politics, Mount Holyoke College
“This wonderful book is absolutely indispensable for understanding Pakistan’s democracy, and all of the main actors and interests involved. The various authors manage very effectively to combine deep knowledge of Pakistan’s political parties, social groups, and interests, with the comparative breadth to put everything into broader theoretical perspective.”
—Steven Wilkinson, Henry R. Luce Director, The Whitney & Betty MacMillan Center for International & Area Studies; Nilekani Professor of India & South Asian Studies; and professor of political science & international affairs, Yale University
Rights: Pakistan
Strongmen
Trump, Modi, Erdogan, Duterte
Edited by Vijay Prashad
Rs. 595 Rs. 297
DESCRIPTION
The monsters have returned. They are led by strong men – by Trump, by Modi, by Erdoğan, by Duterte and by others. But these are not really strong men. These are men who pretend to be strong, who hide behind ugly rhetoric that befuddles the masses, but who are nothing other than cowardly when it comes to social reality. Rather than confront the difficult problems that face us – problems of unemployment and starvation, humiliation and inequality – they take refuge in an easy rhetoric of hate. It is so much easier to hate than to spend the time necessary to build the ramparts of a future world, one where the catastrophic social problems of today no longer define human existence. But the monsters of today – the morbid symptoms of this period of transition – do not care to tackle the problems of society. They blink at them, nod at them, and then move on to harsher prescriptions.
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-969-7834-01-3
Publishing date: May 2018
Rights: Pakistan
Pages: 101
Availability: In Stock