The Adversaries

From the floodlit TV studios of Mumbai to the glittering Rajput courts, Vikram, Amanjit, Deepika and Ras must battle the sorcerer-king Ravindra: his power is growing, and so is his evil reach . . . The second in award-winning author David Hair's series The Return of Ravana. Mumbai, 2010: Everyone's talking about Swayamvara Live!, the TV reality show recreating the ages-old custom where young men compete for the hand of a noble bride. In this case, the bride is Bollywood stunner Sunita Ashoka, who is pledged to marry the man who wins the on-screen contest. For Vikram Khandavani, it's a chance to draw out his nemesis Ravindra, the reincarnated sorcerer-king - but he's taking a deadly gamble. Delhi, 1175: King Prithviraj Chauhan is about to storm the swayamvara of the beautiful Sanyogita - but he's not the only one fixated on the bride-to-be: Ravindra-Raj is coming too, and he's riding at the side of a fierce invader. Only Chand Bardai, in another life known as Aram Dhoop, the Poet of Mandore, stands between Ravindra and all the thrones of India. 'David Hair hasn't just broken the mould. He's completely shattered it'- Bibliosanctum on The Pyre

The bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea, Mayflower, and In the Hurricane's Eye tells the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution, in this "masterpiece of narrative and perspective." (Boston Globe) In the opening volume of his acclaimed American Revolution series, Nathaniel Philbrick turns his keen eye to pre-Revolutionary Boston and the spark that ignited the American Revolution. In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party and the violence at Lexington and Concord, the conflict escalated and skirmishes gave way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It was the bloodiest conflict of the revolutionary war, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists. Philbrick gives us a fresh view of the story and its dynamic personalities, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, John Hancock, Paul Revere, and George Washington. With passion and insight, he reconstructs the revolutionary landscape—geographic and ideological—in a mesmerizing narrative of the robust, messy, blisteringly real origins of America.

Responding to Lenin’s call to fight imperialism alongside nationalist and peasant movements in the colonies, in 1922, the Communist International invited East Asian revolutionary leaders to Moscow to attend the hugely influential Congress of the Toilers of the Far East.

**SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER** On the Saturday morning of January 9, 1993, while Jean Claude Romand was killing his wife and children, I was with mine in a parent-teacher meeting... With these chilling first words, acclaimed master of psychological suspense, Emmanuel Carrère, begins his exploration of the double life of a respectable doctor, eighteen years of lies, five murders, and the extremes to which ordinary people can go. Discover the true story that is ‘beyond the imagination of even the best crime writer' (Sunday Times) 'A disturbing look at the dark side of human nature that is powerfully written and beautifully told' Louis Theroux 'Mesmerising' Sunday Telegraph 'Stunning' Evening Standard 'Unputdownable' Washington Post 'A masterpiece' New York Times

States are more likely to engage in risky and destabilizing actions such as military buildups and preemptive strikes if they believe their adversaries pose a tangible threat. Yet despite the crucial importance of this issue, we don't know enough about how states and their leaders draw inferences about their adversaries' long-term intentions. Knowing the Adversary draws on a wealth of historical archival evidence to shed new light on how world leaders and intelligence organizations actually make these assessments. Keren Yarhi-Milo examines three cases: Britain's assessments of Nazi Germany's intentions in the 1930s, America's assessments of the Soviet Union's intentions during the Carter administration, and the Reagan administration's assessments of Soviet intentions near the end of the Cold War. She advances a new theoretical framework—called selective attention—that emphasizes organizational dynamics, personal diplomatic interactions, and cognitive and affective factors. Yarhi-Milo finds that decision makers don't pay as much attention to those aspects of state behavior that major theories of international politics claim they do. Instead, they tend to determine the intentions of adversaries on the basis of preexisting beliefs, theories, and personal impressions. Yarhi-Milo also shows how intelligence organizations rely on very different indicators than decision makers, focusing more on changes in the military capabilities of adversaries. Knowing the Adversary provides a clearer picture of the historical validity of existing theories, and broadens our understanding of the important role that diplomacy plays in international security.

The bestselling co-author of The Go-Giver offers new insights into what it means to be truly influential Faced with the task of persuading someone to do what we want, most of us expect resistance. We see the other person as an adversary and often resort to coercion or manipulation to get our way. But while this approach might bring us short-term results, it leaves people with a bad feeling about themselves and about us. At that point, our relationship is weakened and our influence dramatically decreased. There has to be a better way. Drawing on his own experiences and the stories of other influential people, communication expert Bob Burg offers five simple principles of what he calls Ultimate Influence—the ability to win people to your side in a way that leaves everyone feeling great about the outcome. In the tradition of Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, Burg offers a tried-and-true framework for building alliances at work, at home, and anywhere else you seek to win people over.

During World War II the uniformed heads of the U.S. armed services assumed a pivotal and unprecedented role in the formulation of the nation's foreign policies. Organized soon after Pearl Harbor as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, these individuals were officially responsible only for the nation's military forces. During the war their functions came to encompass a host of foreign policy concerns, however, and so powerful did the military voice become on those issues that only the president exercised a more decisive role in their outcome. Drawing on sources that include the unpublished records of the Joint Chiefs as well as the War, Navy, and State Departments, Mark Stoler analyzes the wartime rise of military influence in U.S. foreign policy. He focuses on the evolution of and debates over U.S. and Allied global strategy. In the process, he examines military fears regarding America's major allies--Great Britain and the Soviet Union--and how those fears affected President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies, interservice and civil-military relations, military-academic relations, and postwar national security policy as well as wartime strategy.