Caught up in a terrifying war, facing choices of life and death, two Iraqi sisters take us into the hidden world of women’s lives under U.S. occupation. Through their powerful story of love and betrayal, interwoven with the stories of a Palestinian American women’s rights activist and a U.S. soldier, journalist Christina Asquith explores one of the great untold sagas of the Iraq war: the attempt to bring women’s rights to Iraq, and the consequences for all those involved. On the heels of the invasion, twenty-two-year-old Zia accepts a job inside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, trusting that democracy will shield her burgeoning romance with an American contractor from the disapproval of her fellow Iraqis. But as resistance to the U.S. occupation intensifies, Zia and her sister, Nunu, a university student, are targeted by Islamic insurgents and find themselves trapped between their hopes for a new country and the violent reality of a misguided war. Asquith sets their struggle against the broader U.S. efforts to bring women’s rights to Iraq, weaving the sisters’ story with those of Manal, a Palestinian American women’s rights activist, and Heather, a U.S. army reservist, who work together to found Iraq’s first women’s center. After one of their female colleagues is gunned down on a highway, Manal and Heather must decide whether they can keep fighting for Iraqi women if it means risking their own lives. In Sisters in War, Christina Asquith introduces the reader to four women who dare to stand up for their rights in the most desperate circumstances. With compassion and grace, she vividly reveals the plight of women living and serving in Iraq and offers us a vision of how women’s rights and Islam might be reconciled.
The Emergency Teacher is Christina Asquith’s moving firsthand account of her year spent teaching in one of Philadelphia’s worst schools. Told with striking humor and honesty, her story begins when the School District of Philadelphia, faced with 1,500 teacherless classrooms, instituted a policy of hiring “emergency certified” teachers to fill the void. Asquith, a twenty-five-year-old reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined their untrained ranks. Assigned to a classroom known as “the Badlands,” she was told to “sink or swim.” More challenging than the classroom are the trials she faces outside it, including the antics of an overwhelmed first-year principal, the politics that prevent a million-dollar grant from reaching her students, and the administration’s shocking insistence that teachers maintain the appearance of success in the face of utter defeat, even if it means falsifying test scores. Asquith tells a classic story of succeeding against insurmountable odds. With a foreword by bestselling author Mark Bowden and an introduction by award-winning educator Dr. Harry K. Wong, The Emergency Teacher will inspire every teacher—be they first-timers or experienced professionals—to make a difference.
Caught up in a terrifying war, facing choices of life and death, two Iraqi sisters take us into the hidden world of women’s lives under U.S. occupation. Through their powerful story of love and betrayal, interwoven with the stories of a Palestinian American women’s rights activist and a U.S. soldier, journalist Christina Asquith explores one of the great untold sagas of the Iraq war: the attempt to bring women’s rights to Iraq, and the consequences for all those involved. On the heels of the invasion, twenty-two-year-old Zia accepts a job inside the U.S. headquarters in Baghdad, trusting that democracy will shield her burgeoning romance with an American contractor from the disapproval of her fellow Iraqis. But as resistance to the U.S. occupation intensifies, Zia and her sister, Nunu, a university student, are targeted by Islamic insurgents and find themselves trapped between their hopes for a new country and the violent reality of a misguided war. Asquith sets their struggle against the broader U.S. efforts to bring women’s rights to Iraq, weaving the sisters’ story with those of Manal, a Palestinian American women’s rights activist, and Heather, a U.S. army reservist, who work together to found Iraq’s first women’s center. After one of their female colleagues is gunned down on a highway, Manal and Heather must decide whether they can keep fighting for Iraqi women if it means risking their own lives. In Sisters in War, Christina Asquith introduces the reader to four women who dare to stand up for their rights in the most desperate circumstances. With compassion and grace, she vividly reveals the plight of women living and serving in Iraq and offers us a vision of how women’s rights and Islam might be reconciled.
The Emergency Teacher is Christina Asquith’s moving firsthand account of her year spent teaching in one of Philadelphia’s worst schools. Told with striking humor and honesty, her story begins when the School District of Philadelphia, faced with 1,500 teacherless classrooms, instituted a policy of hiring “emergency certified” teachers to fill the void. Asquith, a twenty-five-year-old reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, joined their untrained ranks. Assigned to a classroom known as “the Badlands,” she was told to “sink or swim.” More challenging than the classroom are the trials she faces outside it, including the antics of an overwhelmed first-year principal, the politics that prevent a million-dollar grant from reaching her students, and the administration’s shocking insistence that teachers maintain the appearance of success in the face of utter defeat, even if it means falsifying test scores. Asquith tells a classic story of succeeding against insurmountable odds. With a foreword by bestselling author Mark Bowden and an introduction by award-winning educator Dr. Harry K. Wong, The Emergency Teacher will inspire every teacher—be they first-timers or experienced professionals—to make a difference.
WORLD HISTORY: FIRST WORLD WAR. This fascinating collection of letters traces the exchanges between a young subaltern on the front, Gerard 'Ged' Garvin, and his mother and father at home. Correspondence was eagerly awaited by all. Ged savored letters home like 'Jim Hawkins trickling the doubloons through his fingers'. Equally, his mother and father at home were always fearful that each letter they received would be the last. In a letter J. L. Garvin sent to his son 21 July 1916 he wrote: 'Of course there's no fresh letter from you and we didn't expect it. But we hope, all the same, to get word tomorrow . . .' Ged was killed the very next day. He was just twenty years old. Ged's father was J. L. Garvin (1868-1947) - editor of The Observer and an important figure in pre-war politics and society. Taken together the letters vividly capture the experience of a family during the First World War.
The Africa House details the life of an English officer and gentleman and his remarkable house and colony in deepest Africa. In the ides of the British Empire, Stewart Gore Browne built himself a feudal paradise in northern Rhodesia, a sprawling country estate modeled on the finest homes in England, complete with uniformed servants, daily muster parades, rose gardens and lavish dinners finished off with vintage port in the library." "He wanted to share it with the love of his life, the beautiful, unconventional Ethel Locke King, one of the first women to drive and to fly. She, however, was nearly twenty years his senior, married and his aunt. Lorna, the only other woman he had ever really cared for, had married another. Then he met Lorna's orphaned daughter, so like her mother that he thought he had seen a ghost. It seemed he had at last found love - but the Africa House was his dream, and it would be a hard one to share." "Christina Lamb's updated account of this complicated man - a colonialist who beat his servants yet supported independence, a stiff Englishman with deep passions - is a masterpiece of biography and storytelling. Set against the backdrop of sweeping change across Africa, this is a tale of fantasies made real, tragedy endured and lifelong love."--BOOK JACKET.
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