Publisher Profiles

The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls, and Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient by Sheridan Prasso. A prize-winning journalist and Asia expert issues a provocative critique of the West's criticized illusions about Asia and how profoundly they color our social, cultural, business, personal, and political interactions.

Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power by David J. Rothkopf. Drawing on an extraordinary series of over 300 interviews with policymakers, a former NSC insider provides a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings, history and evolution of what he calls "the most powerful committee in the history of the world" from he small group of men and women who work, often in secret, within the White House to make the most fateful decisions of our time.

Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare by Claire Asquith. A revelatory new look at how Shakespeare secretly addressed the most profound political issues of his day, and his his plays embody a hidden history of England. In a starred review, Booklist calls it: ". . . altogether magnificent. . . Asquith contends that Shakespeare was a recusant Catholic who, supported by and writing for the pleasure of influential political players, eventually including King James I, advocated tolerance, for Puritans as well as Catholics, in his work. She describes a system of words and images that carry messages about the three-way struggle in Shakespeare's plays and poems. . . . applying the meanings of the system to the texts clears up many obscurities and illuminates entire plays (Titus Andronicus, Cymbeline) and characters (Shylock, Mercutio) that modern audiences don't quite get, without vitiating Shakespeare's universality."

The Fate of Africa: From The Hopes of Freedom to the Heart of Despair: A History of Fifty Years of Independence, by Martin Meredith. An epic biography of post-colonial Africa, offering illuminating insight into its current devastating problems, by one of its most authoritative scholars.

The Jedburghs: France, 1944, and the Secret Untold History of the First Special Forces by Lt. Col. Will Irwin, U.S. Army (Ret.) This first full history of the pioneering special forces units of World War II-dropped behind German lines into France to assist with the D-Day landings- offers new perspective on the struggle to liberate Europe. Irwin is a former U.S. Special Forces colonel with unique access to surviving veterans, archival documents, diaries and correspondence.