https://arab.news/pwgvq
Authors: JAY PHELAN AND TERRY BURNHAM
“The Secret Syllabus” equips students with the tools they need to succeed, revealing the unwritten rules and cultural norms and expectations not included in the official curriculum.
Left to figure out on their own how the academic world works, students frequently stumble, underperform, and miss opportunities. Without mastery of the secret syllabus, too many miss out on the full, rich experience available to them in college.
Author: Andrew Fitzmaurice
Eminent jurist, Oxford professor, advocate to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Travers Twiss (1809–1897) was a model establishment figure in Victorian Britain, and a close collaborator of Prince Metternich, the architect of the Concert of Europe.
Yet Twiss’s life was defined by two events that threatened to undermine the order that he had so stoutly defended: a notorious social scandal and the creation of the Congo Free State.
In “King Leopold’s Ghostwriter,” Andrew Fitzmaurice tells the incredible story of a man who, driven by personal events that transformed him from a reactionary to a reformer, rewrote and liberalized international law—yet did so in service of the most brutal regime of the colonial era.
In an elaborate deception, Twiss and Pharaïlde van Lynseele, a Belgian prostitute, sought to reinvent her as a woman of suitably noble birth to be his wife. Their subterfuge collapsed when another former client publicly denounced van Lynseele.
Dr. Ibrahim Al-Muhanna’s book, “Oil Leaders: An Insider’s Account of Four Decades of Saudi Arabia and OPEC’s Global Energy Policy,” offers a detailed narrative of the oil industry’s evolution from a Saudi perspective, drawing on the author’s four decades of experience.
Published in 2022, the book coincides with global energy crises triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Al-Muhanna relies on data from OPEC, the International Energy Agency and interviews to provide an anecdotal biography of key figures who shaped oil politics, targeting a broad audience including policymakers, researchers and industry professionals.
The book is divided into 11 chapters, beginning with the influential role of Saudi Oil Minister Ahmed Zaki Yamani, whose overconfidence and perceived indispensability are critically examined.
Subsequent chapters highlight other pivotal figures, such as Hisham Nazer, Yamani’s successor, and delve into events such as the 1991 Gulf War.
The narrative also covers Luis Giusti, of Venezuela’s PDVSA, whose disregard for OPEC quotas sparked tensions, and discusses OPEC’s struggles with production cuts and falling oil prices in the late 1990s, which led to economic crises in oil-exporting nations such as Saudi Arabia and Venezuela.
Al-Muhanna explores the political ramifications of oil price fluctuations, noting how high prices influenced US presidential elections and shaped diplomatic interactions, such as George W. Bush’s visit to Riyadh.
The book also examines the rise of Russia under Vladimir Putin, the privatization of Saudi Aramco as part of Vision 2030, and the roles of contemporary leaders such as Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and former US President Joe Biden in shaping global energy policy.
Between the 19th century and today, colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts to museums in Europe and the United States.
Most of these artifacts were cataloged as ornamental art objects, which erased their intended functions, and the removal of these objects often had catastrophic consequences for the original structures.
“Africa’s Buildings” traces the history of the collection and distribution of African architectural fragments, documenting the brutality of the colonial regimes that looted Africa’s buildings.
“Birds at Rest” is the first book to give a full picture of how birds rest, roost, and sleep, a vital part of their lives.
It features new science that can measure what is happening in a bird’s brain over the course of a night or when it has flown to another hemisphere, as well as still-valuable observations by legendary naturalists such as John James Audubon, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Theodore Roosevelt. Much of what they saw and what ornithologists are studying today can be observed and enjoyed by any birder.
Author: Kenneth Catania
Like any creative endeavor, science can be a messy and chaotic affair.
“On the Art and Craft of Doing Science” shares the creative process of an innovative and accomplished scientist, taking readers behind the scenes of some of his most pioneering investigations and explaining why the practice of science, far from being an orderly exercise in pure logic, is a form of creative expression like any other art.
Kenneth Catania begins by discussing how ideas set the stage for scientific breakthroughs and goes on to describe ways to approach experimental design.
