A woman must decide between two lovers and two worlds—Africa and America—in a riveting, courageous journey “A modern romance with global scope . . . Not since Marita Golden’s Migrations of the Heart has a writer so deftly played the heartstrings that swing between Africa and African Americans.”—Veronica Chambers Reba Freeman’s current husband, Carl, has given her all the wealth a suburban wife could hope for. But Reba’s life is turned inside out once she learns that her first husband, Joseph Thomas, is being held by the World Court for crimes against humanity. Joseph, a gifted Liberian student, had dreams of returning to his native land with his wife and educating his people, yet because of mysterious circumstances, Reba didn’t accompany him to Liberia. Now, twenty years later, she must decide if helping her first husband is worth the risk of losing her comfortable world. Alternating between present-day action and flashbacks, Accident of Birth creates an intricate tapestry of suspense, drama, and romance. Neff boldly exposes the rift between American comforts and the traumas of the world we choose to ignore, creating a moving novel that readers will talk about for a long time.

From the Civil War to the Cuban independence movement to WWI, this historical epic follows the incredible life of a woman tragically bound to bloodshed. War brings about many strange events, but none stranger than the bullet that impregnated sixteen-year-old Annielise Quinn at the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863. After passing through the groin of a Confederate soldier, the bullet lodged itself in her pelvis. Such was the portentous beginning of Beverly Bethany Quinn, the “bullet baby” whose life was fated never to escape the perils of war. By 1915, Bethany thinks she has finally found peace, until a call from the British Crown brings a shocking revelation. To aid the Allies in the Great War overseas, England would like to purchase a cache of rifles owned by her family’s sugar mill in Cuba—a cache that Bethany never knew existed. Years ago, Bethany and her uncle Jonathan supplied guns to the Cuban rebels against Spain. Has her uncle doomed her from beyond the grave to take part in slaughter once again? In preparation for the journey of her “special cargo,” Bethany sits down with her mother’s old diary, returning to that fateful day in 1863, and unfolding an epic journey of war, survival, love, and betrayal spanning decades and nations.

This volume collects seventeen stories of women and men who, simply because they were born poor, or a particular gender, or into a certain caste or religion, fell prey to the many atrocities and indignities endemic to contemporary India. Some resisted, survived, and soldier on. Some did not. Lachmi Kaur lost almost all the male members of her family in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984. She then overcame despair to singlehandedly bring up her children and grandchildren with fierce love and pride. With great courage of conviction, Krishan Gopal, a Dalit man from Nimoda in Rajasthan, decided to build his own shrine to Hanuman after being forbidden from the village temple by his upper-caste neighbours. What followed was persecution, violence and exile from the village which lasted all his life. At twenty-eight, Dandapani defied his family--which could not accept him for what he was--left home, and underwent a sex-change operation. Now known as Dhanam, she lives with her extended family of eunuchs in a Chennai shanty. And, in a chilling first-person account, Raheem tells of his village in Muzaffarnagar which, after cynical political manipulation, went from amity to a communal conflagration in just a week. Fatal Accidents of Birth is a powerful, challenging book. It tells us of the many ways in which we inflict violence upon each other--most of all by choosing to not see. And as it does so, this necessary book ensures that these stories will find their rightful place in our consciousness.

A technicolor history of the first civil rights movement and its collapse into black and white. Brutal slavery existed all over the New World, but only America followed emancipation with a twisted system of segregation. The Accident of Color asks why. Searching for answers, Daniel Brook journeys to the places that resisted Jim Crow the longest. In the cosmopolitan port cities of New Orleans and Charleston, integrated streetcars plied avenues patrolled by integrated police forces for decades after the Civil War. This progress was ushered in during Reconstruction when long-free, openly biracial communities joined in coalition with the formerly enslaved and allies at the fringes of whiteness. Tragically, their victories—including integrated schools—and their alliance itself were violently uprooted by segregation along a stark, new black-white color line. By revisiting a turning point in the construction of America’s uniquely restrictive racial system, The Accident of Color brings to life a moment from our past that illuminates the origins of the racial lies we live by.

Advances in global development have helped lift hundreds of millions of people from poverty in recent decades, but major challenges in fighting poverty remain. Billions of people continue to have little or no access to the basic necessities of life: clean water, food, shelter, education, and medical care. The random location of their birthplace limited much of what is possible in many of their lives. Yet legions of dedicated people today are proving that with the right approaches and resources, disciplined efforts to fight poverty can succeed—and with greater scale and impact than ever. In An Accident of Geography, author Richard C. Blum profiles many of them while narrating his inspiring personal story—accomplished private-equity investor especially in Asia, humanitarian, public policy advocate, and creator of an unprecedented, multidisciplinary curriculum in poverty and development studies that has attracted thousands of students on the ten campuses of the University of California and beyond. Blum offers practical guidance on what works best: giving poor people a greater voice in the field and applying key principles of 21st-century management, engineering, and development philanthropy. Put your accident of geography to work in helping others, and yourself Be the change maker you see in the mirror. ​All author proceeds from the sale of An Accident of Geography will be donated to projects advancing global development.

Current social and education policies directed toward children focus on improving cognition, yet success in life requires more than smarts. Heckman calls for a refocus of social policy toward early childhood interventions designed to enhance both cognitive abilities and such non-cognitive skills as confidence and perseverance. This new focus on preschool intervention would emphasize improving the early environments of disadvantaged children and increasing the quality of parenting while respecting the primacy of the family and America's cultural diversity. Heckman shows that acting early has much greater positive economic and social impact than later interventions -- which range from reduced pupil-teacher ratios to adult literacy programs to expenditures on police -- that draw the most attention in the public policy debate. At a time when state and local budgets for early interventions are being cut, Heckman issues an urgent call for action and offers some practical steps for how to design and pay for new programs.