Amy Goodman, award-winning host of the daily internationally broadcast radio and television program Democracy Now!, breaks through the corporate media's lies, sound bites, and silence in this wide-ranging new collection of articles. "Amy Goodman has taken investigative journalism to new heights of exciting, informative, and probing analysis."--Noam Chomsky "You can learn more of the truth about Washington and the world from one week of Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! than from a month of Sunday morning talk shows. Make that a year of Sunday talk shows. That's because Amy, as you will discover on every page of this book, knows the critical question for journalists is how close they are to the truth, not how close they are to power."--From the Preface by Bill Moyers In place of the usual suspects--the "experts" who, in Goodman's words, "know so little about so much, explain the world to us, and get it so wrong"--this accessible, lively collection allows the voices the corporate media exclude and ignore to be heard loud and clear. From community organizers in New Orleans, to the courageous American soldiers who've said "No" to Washington's wars, to the victims of torture and police violence, we are given the extraordinary opportunity to hear ordinary people standing up and speaking out. Written with all of the fierce intelligence and passion for truth that millions have come to expect from Amy Goodman's reportage, Breaking the Sound Barrier proves the power that independent journalism can play in the struggle for a better world, one in which ordinary citizens are the true experts of their own lives and communities. Amy Goodman is an award-winning investigative journalist and syndicated columnist, author and the host/executive producer of Democracy Now! airing on nearly 800 stations worldwide. Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' for "developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media.". Goodman is the co-author with her brother, journalist David Goodman, of three New York Times bestsellers: Standing Up to the Madness, Static, and The Exception to the Rulers.

Written by the co-author of international bestseller Long Walk to Freedom, Mandela's Way presents fifteen powerful lessons on life and leadership based on the life and work of Nelson Mandela, whose fight against apartheid in South Africa has become an enduring example of resistance against injustice and oppression. A recipient of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, Mandela is a man who truly changed the course of world history and is arguably the most inspirational figure of the past century.The result of many hours of discussion between the author Richard Stengel and Mandela, Mandela's Way features a series of essential lessons, such as 'Nothing is black and white' and 'Courage is not the absence of fear - it's inspiring others to move beyond it'. Stengel spent two years with Mandela working on his bestselling autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, and through that process became a close friend.Written with the blessing of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, to which the author will donate a percentage of his royalties, Mandela's Way is an inspirational book of wisdom that will encourage people of all ages to look within themselves to improve their lives, to reconsider the things they take for granted, and to think about the legacy they leave behind.

"One of the great statesmen of our century, Shimon Peres, winner of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize, has shaped the history of Israel and the future of the Middle East. In the seventies, as Israel's minister of defense, he engineered the legendary Entebbe raid against PLO terrorists; in the eighties, as prime minister, he saved the Israeli economy from near collapse; and as foreign minister, Shimon Peres is now a key negotiator in the peace accords that he helped bring about. In Battling for Peace, he tells, for the first time, the story of his amazing career. As we follow Peres from his ancestral home in Poland to Israel, from the youth village of Ben-Shemen to Kibbutz Alumot, from youth movement leader to prime minister, we are introduced both to a man and to a nation. A thoughtful, disciplined, and immensely resourceful young man, Peres was singled out by Israel's great leader David Ben-Gurion, who appointed him, while still in his twenties, director general of the Ministry of Defense. From this point on, Peres's life was inseparable from his country's history. Peres writes of his bitter quarrels with Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin, and of his great admiration for Ben-Gurion, Moshe Dayan, and Francois Mitterrand. He discusses the origins of Israel's nuclear program, and tells how he led the way toward the Oslo agreement, describing his secret talks with King Hussein in London ten years ago, and revealing how a chance for peace was thwarted by self-serving politicians and timid American diplomacy"--OCLC

Reviled as a fascist by his great rival Ben-Gurion, venerated by Israel's underclass, the first Israeli to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a proud Jew but not a conventionally religious one, Menachem Begin was both complex and controversial. Born in Poland in 1913, Begin was a youthful admirer of the Revisionist Zionist movement. A powerful orator, Begin was imprisoned by the Soviets in 1940, joined the Free Polish Army in 1942, and arrived in Palestine as a Polish soldier shortly thereafter. Joining the underground paramilitary Irgun in 1943, he achieved instant notoriety for the organization's violent acts. Intentionally left out of the new Israeli government, Begin's right-leaning Herut party became a fixture of the opposition, until the surprising parliamentary victory of his political coalition in 1977 made him prime minister. Welcoming Egyptian president Anwar Sadat to Israel and cosigning a peace treaty with him on the White House lawn in 1979, Begin accomplished what his predecessors could not. His outreach to Ethiopian Jews and Vietnamese "boat people" was universally admired, and his decision to bomb Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 is now regarded as an act of courageous foresight. But the disastrous invasion of Lebanon, combined with his declining health and the death of his wife, led Begin to resign in 1983. He spent the next nine years in virtual seclusion, until his death in 1992. Begin was buried not alongside Israel's prime ministers, but alongside the Irgun comrades who died in the struggle to create the Jewish national home to which he had devoted his life. Daniel Gordis's perceptive biography gives us new insight into a remarkable political figure whose influence continues to be felt throughout the world.--From publisher description.