'Taccuini del deserto' nasce da un lungo soggiorno dell'autore nel deserto californiano del Mojave e dal deserto, luogo dove tutto inizia e finisce, trae uno sguardo inedito e assolutamente affascinante su quanto l'umanità sta vivendo in questo momento storico 'in cui tutto, compreso il tempo, sembra sull'orlo del collasso': una crisi irreversibile e sempre più profonda alla quale sembra non esserci rimedio se non la fine della nostra civiltà. E proprio dal deserto, simbolo al tempo stesso di morte e di trascendenza, che 'ti fa arretrare e mette l'eternità in primo piano', Ben Ehrenreich prende le mosse per riflettere su cosa significhi l'idea di 'fine dei tempi' non solo per la nostra civiltà ma anche per quelle che ci hanno preceduto. Come affrontare dunque l'Apocalisse ora che il tempo, suggerisce l'autore, sembra essersi annodato su se stesso? E cosa ci insegna la fine di intere civilizzazioni quali per esempio quella dell'antico Egitto e dei Maya? Passando dalla mitologia alla scienza, dalla storia delle religioni alla politica, dalla cosmologia all'antropologia e al racconto autobiografico, 'Taccuini del deserto' affronta il senso più profondo e riposto dell'essere vivi qui e oggi, sospesi in un tempo di assoluta incertezza ma che ci pone problemi e domande non troppo dissimili forse da quelli che altre civiltà prima di noi hanno affrontato, sopravvivendo in modi nuovi oppure scomparendo per sempre.

From an award-winning journalist, a brave and necessary immersion into the lives and struggles of a group of everyday Palestinians

For the past three years, American writer Ben Ehrenreich has been spending stretches of time living with several Palestinian families in the West Bank. Along the way he has written major stories for American outlets, including a remarkable New York Times Magazine cover story. Now comes the powerful new work that has always been his ultimate goal, The Way to the Spring.

We are familiar with brave journalists who travel to bleak or war-torn places and make human contact with people suffering from extremes of oppression and want: Katherine Boo, Adrian Nicole Leblanc, Alex Kotlowitz, and Philip Gourevitch among them. Palestine is, by any measure, whatever one's politics, one such place. In cities and small villages alike, men and women, young and old, a group of unforgettable characters share their lives with Ehrenreich and make their own case for resistance and resilience in the face of life under occupation. Ruled by the Israeli military, set upon and harassed constantly by Israeli settlers who admit unapologetically to wanting to drive them from the land, forced to negotiate an ever more elaborate and more suffocating series of fences, checkpoints and barriers that have sundered home from field, home from home, they are a population whose living conditions are unique, and indeed hard to imagine.

Blending political and historical context with deeply human stories, The Way to the Spring makes clear that conditions on the ground are changing--and getting worse, in an accelerating dynamic that should provoke the conscience of us all. In a great act of bravery, empathy and understanding, Ben Ehrenreich, by placing us in the footsteps of ordinary Palestinians and telling their story with surpassing literary power and grace, makes it impossible for us to turn away.


From the Hardcover edition.

Drone Warfare is the first comprehensive analysis of one of the fastest growing—and most secretive—fronts in global conflict: the rise of robot warfare. In 2000, the Pentagon had fewer than fifty aerial drones; ten years later, it had a fleet of nearly 7,500, and the US Air Force now trains more drone “pilots” than bomber and fighter pilots combined. Drones are already a $5 billion business in the US alone. The human cost? Drone strikes have killed more than 200 children alone in Pakistan and Yemen.

CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin provides the first extensive analysis of who is producing the drones, where they are being used, who controls these unmanned planes, and what are the legal and moral implications of their use. In vivid, readable style, this book also looks at what activists, lawyers, and scientists across the globe are doing to ground these weapons. Benjamin argues that the assassinations we are carrying out from the air will come back to haunt us when others start doing the same thing—to us.

In this re-imaging of The Odyssey, Ben Ehrenreich casts the ever-pining Penny as a modern-day Penelope, aswirl in a sea of hopeful ne'er-do-wells. While her lover Payne, much like Odysseus, gallivants around waging war and otherwise taking his time on the voyage home, the suitors fail to steal Penny's mind away from her memories. But when a mysterious man with suspicious origins arrives upon the scene, the precarious pecking order unravels in the glow of Penny's newly ignited ardor.