The Looting Machine

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History's Greatest Heist

Author : Sean McMeekin
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300152795
Total Pages : 331 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis History's Greatest Heist by : Sean McMeekin

Download or read book History's Greatest Heist written by Sean McMeekin and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-17 with total page 331 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Lenin’s regime turned Russia’s priceless cultural patrimony into armored cars, trains, planes, and machine guns Historians have never resolved a central mystery of the Russian Revolution: How did the Bolsheviks, despite facing a world of enemies and leaving nothing but economic ruin in their path, manage to stay in power through five long years of civil war? In this penetrating book, Sean McMeekin draws on previously undiscovered materials from the Soviet Ministry of Finance and other European and American archives to expose some of the darkest secrets of Russia’s early days of communism. Building on one archival revelation after another, the author reveals how the Bolsheviks financed their aggression through astonishingly extensive thievery. Their looting included everything from the cash savings of private citizens to gold, silver, diamonds, jewelry, icons, antiques, and artwork. By tracking illicit Soviet financial transactions across Europe, McMeekin shows how Lenin’s regime accomplished history’s greatest heist between 1917 and 1922 and turned centuries of accumulated wealth into the sinews of class war. McMeekin also names names, introducing for the first time the compliant bankers, lawyers, and middlemen who, for a price, helped the Bolsheviks launder their loot, impoverish Russia, and impose their brutal will on millions.

The Fortunes of Africa

Author : Martin Meredith
Publisher : Public Affairs
ISBN 13 : 1610394593
Total Pages : 770 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis The Fortunes of Africa by : Martin Meredith

Download or read book The Fortunes of Africa written by Martin Meredith and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2014-10-14 with total page 770 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Africa has been coveted for its riches ever since the era of the Pharaohs. In past centuries, it was the lure of gold, ivory, and slaves that drew fortune-seekers, merchant-adventurers, and conquerors from afar. In modern times, the focus of attention is on oil, diamonds, and other valuable minerals. Land was another prize. The Romans relied on their colonies in northern Africa for vital grain shipments to feed the population of Rome. Arab invaders followed in their wake, eventually colonizing the entire region. More recently, foreign corporations have acquired huge tracts of land to secure food supplies needed abroad, just as the Romans did. In this vast and vivid panorama of history, Martin Meredith follows the fortunes of Africa over a period of 5,000 years. With compelling narrative, he traces the rise and fall of ancient kingdoms and empires; the spread of Christianity and Islam; the enduring quest for gold and other riches; the exploits of explorers and missionaries; and the impact of European colonization. He examines, too, the fate of modern African states and concludes with a glimpse of their future. His cast of characters includes religious leaders, mining magnates, warlords, dictators, and many other legendary figures—among them Mansa Musa, ruler of the medieval Mali empire, said to be the richest man the world has ever known. “I speak of Africa,” Shakespeare wrote, “and of golden joys.” This is history on an epic scale.

Nazi Looting

Author : Gerard Aalders
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 360 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (91 download)

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Book Synopsis Nazi Looting by : Gerard Aalders

Download or read book Nazi Looting written by Gerard Aalders and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Nazi looting machine was notoriously efficient during the Second World War. In the Netherlands, 8.5 million citizens suffered losses estimated at 3.6 billion guilders. Approximately one-third of these losses were borne by Jews, who comprised only 1.6% of the total population. In todays terms, the German occupiers stripped the Jewish population of assets worth $7 billion.Nazi Looting offers a comprehensive history of the Dutch experience and demonstrates how reputable indigenous institutions acted as willing collaborators. Beginning with a survey of international law and various definitions of 'looting', the author shows how the Germans systematically robbed Dutch Jewry through a variety of means that gave the outward appearance of honest trading. Forced to sell under duress and at unreasonably low prices, few dared refuse the German on the doorstep when threatened with prison or incarceration in a camp.The plundering was total and systematic. In May 1940, a team of highly trained art historians, linguists, musicologists and literary experts arrived immediately behind the victorious German troops to catalogue the vast collections for Hitler. From 1941, Jews were compelled to deposit all their money into a bank called Lippmann, Rosenthal Co. The name of the bank itself was a cynical ploy since it was taken from a respected, Jewish-owned Amsterdam bank and presented as a new branch. This bank, however, simply channelled money into the Third Reich with the help of the Amsterdam Stock Exchange, insurance brokers and other well-established Dutch banks. Once the Jews were deported, their houses were emptied and the contents used to re-furnish bombed out areas of the Reich. In common with many other formerly Nazi-occupied countries in Europe, the Netherlands has been unable to retrieve many of its pre-war assets. More than fifty years after the wars end, 20% of its most important pre-war museum exhibits and approximately 80% of the less important works remain untrace

The Book Thieves

Author : Anders Rydell
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735221235
Total Pages : 370 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Book Thieves by : Anders Rydell

Download or read book The Book Thieves written by Anders Rydell and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A chilling reminder of Hitler’s twisted power." —BBC For readers of The Monuments Men and The Hare with Amber Eyes, the story of the Nazis' systematic pillaging of Europe's libraries, and the small team of heroic librarians now working to return the stolen books to their rightful owners. While the Nazi party was being condemned by much of the world for burning books, they were already hard at work perpetrating an even greater literary crime. Through extensive new research that included records saved by the Monuments Men themselves—Anders Rydell tells the untold story of Nazi book theft, as he himself joins the effort to return the stolen books. When the Nazi soldiers ransacked Europe’s libraries and bookshops, large and small, the books they stole were not burned. Instead, the Nazis began to compile a library of their own that they could use to wage an intellectual war on literature and history. In this secret war, the libraries of Jews, Communists, Liberal politicians, LGBT activists, Catholics, Freemasons, and many other opposition groups were appropriated for Nazi research, and used as an intellectual weapon against their owners. But when the war was over, most of the books were never returned. Instead many found their way into the public library system, where they remain to this day. Now, Rydell finds himself entrusted with one of these stolen volumes, setting out to return it to its rightful owner. It was passed to him by the small team of heroic librarians who have begun the monumental task of combing through Berlin’s public libraries to identify the looted books and reunite them with the families of their original owners. For those who lost relatives in the Holocaust, these books are often the only remaining possession of their relatives they have ever held. And as Rydell travels to return the volume he was given, he shows just how much a single book can mean to those who own it.

Looting Africa

Author : Patrick Bond
Publisher : Zed Books Ltd.
ISBN 13 : 1848137281
Total Pages : 206 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (481 download)

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Book Synopsis Looting Africa by : Patrick Bond

Download or read book Looting Africa written by Patrick Bond and published by Zed Books Ltd.. This book was released on 2013-04-04 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite the rhetoric, the people of Sub-Saharan Africa are become poorer. From Tony Blair's Africa Commission and the Make Poverty History campaign to the Hong Kong WTO meeting, Africa's gains have been mainly limited to public relations. The central problems remain exploitative debt and financial relationships with the North, phantom aid, unfair trade, distorted investment and the continent's brain/skills drain. Moreover, capitalism in most African countries has witnessed the emergence of excessively powerful ruling elites with incomes derived from financial-parasitical accumulation. Without overstressing the 'mistakes' of such elites, this book contextualises Africa's wealth outflow within a stagnant but volatile world economy.

Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen

Author : Lisa Shannon
Publisher : Public Affairs
ISBN 13 : 1610394453
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen by : Lisa Shannon

Download or read book Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen written by Lisa Shannon and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2015-02-03 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Driven by her family’s devastating losses, Congolese expatriate Francisca Thelin embarks, with human rights activist Lisa J. Shannon, on a perilous journey back to her beloved homeland, now under the shadow of one of Africa’s most feared militias—Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. With gunmen camped at the edge of town, Francisca is forced to face a paralyzing clash between her life in America and her family’s rapidly evaporating world—and the reality that their rush to her family’s aid may backfire. Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen weaves Francisca’s journey with stories of the family’s harrowing encounters with gunmen and tales from their past to create a vivid, illuminating portrait of a place and its people. We hear of Mama Koko’s early life as a gap-toothed beauty plotting to escape her inevitable fate of wife and motherhood; of Papa Alexander’s empire of wives, each of whom he married because she cooked and cleaned and made good coffee; and of Francisca’s idyllic childhood, when she ran barefoot through the family’s coffee plantation gorging herself on mangoes and fish that “were the size of small children.” Offering compelling testimony to the strength of the human spirit and the beauty of human connection in the darkest of times, Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen also explores what it means and requires to truly make a difference in an unjust and often violent world.

Kleptopia

Author : Tom Burgis
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0063236133
Total Pages : 452 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (632 download)

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Book Synopsis Kleptopia by : Tom Burgis

Download or read book Kleptopia written by Tom Burgis and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year • An Economist Book of the Year “A must-read for anyone wanting to better understand what has already happened here in America and what lies ahead if Trump is reelected in November…. A magisterial account of the money and violence behind the world’s most powerful dictatorships.” –Washington Post In this shocking, meticulously reported work of narrative nonfiction, an award-winning investigative journalist exposes “capitalism’s monster”—global kleptocracy—and reveals how it is corrupting the world around us. They are everywhere, the thieves and their people. Masters of secrecy. Until now we have detected their presence only by what they leave behind. A body in a burned-out Audi. Workers riddled with bullets in the Kazakh Desert. A rigged election in Zimbabwe. A British banker silenced and humiliated for trying to expose the truth about the City of London. They have amassed more money than most countries. But what they are really stealing is power. In this real-life thriller packed with jaw-dropping revelations, award-winning investigative journalist Tom Burgis weaves together four stories that reveal a terrifying global web of corruption: the troublemaker from Basingstoke who stumbles on the secrets of a Swiss bank, the ex-Soviet billionaire constructing a private empire, the righteous Canadian lawyer with a mysterious client, and the Brooklyn crook protected by the CIA. Glimpses of this shadowy world have emerged over the years. In Kleptopia, Burgis connects the dots. He follows the dirty money that is flooding the global economy, emboldening dictators, and poisoning democracies. From the Kremlin to Beijing, Harare to Riyadh, Paris to the White House, the trail shows something even more sinister: the thieves are uniting. And the human cost will be great.

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky

Author : Benjamin Ajak
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1610395999
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky by : Benjamin Ajak

Download or read book They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky written by Benjamin Ajak and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2015-08-11 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning literary survival story of three young Sudanese boys, two brothers and a cousin—hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “moving, beautifully written account, by turns warm and tender.” Between 1987 and 1989, Alepho, Benjamin, and Benson, like tens of thousands of young boys, took flight from the massacres of Sudan's civil war. They became known as the Lost Boys. With little more than the clothes on their backs, sometimes not even that, they streamed out over Sudan in search of refuge. Their journey led them first to Ethiopia and then, driven back into Sudan, toward Kenya. They walked nearly one thousand miles, sustained only by the sheer will to live. They Poured Fire on Us from the Sky is the three boys' account of that unimaginable journey. With the candor and the purity of their child's-eye-vision, Alephonsian, Benjamin, and Benson recall by turns: how they endured the hunger and strength-sapping illnesses—dysentery, malaria, and yellow fever; how they dodged the life-threatening predators—lions, snakes, crocodiles and soldiers alike—that dogged their footsteps; and how they grappled with a war that threatened continually to overwhelm them. Their story is a lyrical, captivating, timeless portrait of a childhood hurled into wartime and how they had the good fortune and belief in themselves to survive.

Bring Me My Machine Gun

Author : Alec Russell
Publisher : Public Affairs
ISBN 13 : 1586487388
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (864 download)

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Book Synopsis Bring Me My Machine Gun by : Alec Russell

Download or read book Bring Me My Machine Gun written by Alec Russell and published by Public Affairs. This book was released on 2009-04-14 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the story of post-apartheid South Africa, from the hopeful reconciliation of Nelson Mandela's rule to the disappointments of Thabo Mbeki's administration to the possible election of Jacob Zuma as president.

Destination Casablanca

Author : Meredith Hindley
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1610394062
Total Pages : 693 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Destination Casablanca by : Meredith Hindley

Download or read book Destination Casablanca written by Meredith Hindley and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 693 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This rollicking and panoramic history of Casablanca during the Second World War sheds light on the city as a key hub for European and American powers, and a place where spies, soldiers, and political agents exchanged secrets and vied for control. In November 1942, as a part of Operation Torch, 33,000 American soldiers sailed undetected across the Atlantic and stormed the beaches of French Morocco. Seventy-four hours later, the Americans controlled the country and one of the most valuable wartime ports: Casablanca. In the years preceding, Casablanca had evolved from an exotic travel destination to a key military target after France's surrender to Germany. Jewish refugees from Europe poured in, hoping to obtain visas and passage to the United States and beyond. Nazi agents and collaborators infiltrated the city in search of power and loyalty. The resistance was not far behind, as shopkeepers, celebrities, former French Foreign Legionnaires, and disgruntled bureaucrats formed a network of Allied spies. But once in American hands, Casablanca became a crucial logistical hub in the fight against Germany -- and the site of Roosevelt and Churchill's demand for "unconditional surrender." Rife with rogue soldiers, power grabs, and diplomatic intrigue, Destination Casablanca is the riveting and untold story of this glamorous city--memorialized in the classic film that was rush-released in 1942 to capitalize on the drama that was unfolding in North Africa at the heart of World War II.

In Defense of Looting

Author : Vicky Osterweil
Publisher : Bold Type Books
ISBN 13 : 1645036677
Total Pages : 262 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (45 download)

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Book Synopsis In Defense of Looting by : Vicky Osterweil

Download or read book In Defense of Looting written by Vicky Osterweil and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2020-08-25 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fresh argument for rioting and looting as our most powerful tools for dismantling white supremacy. Looting -- a crowd of people publicly, openly, and directly seizing goods -- is one of the more extreme actions that can take place in the midst of social unrest. Even self-identified radicals distance themselves from looters, fearing that violent tactics reflect badly on the broader movement. But Vicky Osterweil argues that stealing goods and destroying property are direct, pragmatic strategies of wealth redistribution and improving life for the working class -- not to mention the brazen messages these methods send to the police and the state. All our beliefs about the innate righteousness of property and ownership, Osterweil explains, are built on the history of anti-Black, anti-Indigenous oppression. From slave revolts to labor strikes to the modern-day movements for climate change, Black lives, and police abolition, Osterweil makes a convincing case for rioting and looting as weapons that bludgeon the status quo while uplifting the poor and marginalized. In Defense of Looting is a history of violent protest sparking social change, a compelling reframing of revolutionary activism, and a practical vision for a dramatically restructured society.

Africa

Author : Richard Dowden
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 0786741422
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (867 download)

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Book Synopsis Africa by : Richard Dowden

Download or read book Africa written by Richard Dowden and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2008-12-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After a lifetime's close observation of the continent, one of the world's finest Africa correspondents has penned a landmark book on life and death in modern Africa. It takes a guide as observant, experienced, and patient as Richard Dowden to reveal its truths. Dowden combines a novelist's gift for atmosphere with the scholar's grasp of historical change as he spins tales of cults and commerce in Senegal and traditional spirituality in Sierra Leone; analyzes the impact of oil and the internet on Nigeria and aid on Sudan; and examines what has gone so badly wrong in Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo. Dowden's master work is an attempt to explain why Africa is the way it is, and enables its readers to see and understand this miraculous continent as a place of inspiration and tremendous humanity.

The Gold Train

Author : Ronald W. Zweig
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 9780060935122
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (351 download)

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Book Synopsis The Gold Train by : Ronald W. Zweig

Download or read book The Gold Train written by Ronald W. Zweig and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2003-12-16 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1944, the great "Gold Train" headed west from Budapest, carrying gems, cash, furs, carpets, wedding rings, and even gold teeth -- all possessions stripped from Hungarian Jews before their murder. The Gold Train took on a legendary quality even as it steamed out of the station -- hundreds of millions of dollars in assets were on the move, accompanied by cunning, desperate, or gullible passengers trying to reach an illusory Nazi stronghold in the Alps. Drawing on a decade's worth of research into American, Israeli, and European archives, as well as private papers, eyewitness accounts, and other sources, Ronald Zweig tells the full story of the Gold Train. He introduces us to the large cast of players enmeshed in the drama, examines the myths that have developed around the journey, and places this incredible event within the annals of Holocaust and Cold War history, including its impact on restitution policies from the postwar years to today.

Dancing in the Glory of Monsters

Author : Jason Stearns
Publisher : PublicAffairs
ISBN 13 : 1610391594
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Dancing in the Glory of Monsters by : Jason Stearns

Download or read book Dancing in the Glory of Monsters written by Jason Stearns and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2012-03-27 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A "tremendous," "intrepid" history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa's Congo, with first-hand accounts of the continent's worst conflict in modern times. At the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of Western Europe, bordering nine other nations, that since 1996 has been wracked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply-reported narrative of how Congo became a failed state that collapsed into a war of retaliatory massacres. Stearns brilliantly describes the key perpetrators, many of whom he met personally, and highlights the nature of the political system that brought these people to power, as well as the moral decisions with which the war confronted them. Now updated with a new introduction, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters tells the full story of Africa's Great War.

The Lost Cities of Africa

Author : Basil Davidson
Publisher : Boston : Little, Brown
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 412 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Lost Cities of Africa by : Basil Davidson

Download or read book The Lost Cities of Africa written by Basil Davidson and published by Boston : Little, Brown. This book was released on 1959 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses Egypt, Kush, Meroe, kingdoms of the Old Sudan, Ghana, Mali, Timbuktu, Songhay, the Sao and Kanem, Carthage, Benin, Zanj, Kalambo, Sheba, coastal trade, Axum, Ethiopia, Engaruka, Zimbabwe, Mapungubwe, Inyanga and Niekerk, medieval Rhodesia, the Azanians, the Phoenicians, Djenne, El Masudi, Gao, the Iron Age, Kenya, Kilwa, Khartoum, Malindi, Mombasa, Monomotapa, Mozambique, Ophir, Punt, the Portuguese and the slave trade, Sofala, and more.

Dictatorland

Author : Paul Kenyon
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1784972150
Total Pages : 552 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (849 download)

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Book Synopsis Dictatorland by : Paul Kenyon

Download or read book Dictatorland written by Paul Kenyon and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-01-11 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Financial Times Book of the Year 'Jaw-dropping' Daily Express 'Grimly fascinating' Financial Times 'Humane, timely, accessible and well-researched' Irish Times The dictator who grew so rich on his country's cocoa crop that he built a 35-storey-high basilica in the jungles of the Ivory Coast. The austere, incorruptible leader who has shut Eritrea off from the world in a permanent state of war and conscripted every adult into the armed forces. In Equatorial Guinea, the paranoid despot who thought Hitler was the saviour of Africa and waged a relentless campaign of terror against his own people. The Libyan army officer who authored a new work of political philosophy, The Green Book, and lived in a tent with a harem of female soldiers, running his country like a mafia family business. And behind these almost incredible stories of fantastic violence and excess lie the dark secrets of Western greed and complicity, the insatiable taste for chocolate, oil, diamonds and gold that has encouraged dictators to rule with an iron hand, siphoning off their share of the action into mansions in Paris and banks in Zurich and keeping their people in dire poverty.

The War Machines

Author : Danny Hoffman
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822350777
Total Pages : 322 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

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Book Synopsis The War Machines by : Danny Hoffman

Download or read book The War Machines written by Danny Hoffman and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on ethnographic research among militias in Sierra Leone and Liberia, Danny Hoffman considers how young men are made available for violent labor on battlefields and in dangerous unregulated industries.