In a narrative-redefining approach, Engaging the Evil Empire dramatically alters how we look at the beginning of the end of the Cold War. Tracking key events in US-Soviet relations across the years between 1980 and 1985, Simon Miles shows that covert engagement gave way to overt conversation as both superpowers determined that open diplomacy was the best means of furthering their own, primarily competitive, goals. Miles narrates the history of these dramatic years, as President Ronald Reagan consistently applied a disciplined carrot-and-stick approach, reaching out to Moscow while at the same time excoriating the Soviet system and building up US military capabilities. The received wisdom in diplomatic circles is that the beginning of the end of the Cold War came from changing policy preferences and that President Reagan in particular opted for a more conciliatory and less bellicose diplomatic approach. In reality, Miles clearly demonstrates, Reagan and ranking officials in the National Security Council had determined that the United States enjoyed a strategic margin of error that permitted it to engage Moscow overtly. As US grand strategy developed, so did that of the Soviet Union. Engaging the Evil Empire covers five critical years of Cold War history when Soviet leaders tried to reduce tensions between the two nations in order to gain economic breathing room and, to ensure domestic political stability, prioritize expenditures on butter over those on guns. Miles's bold narrative shifts the focus of Cold War historians away from exclusive attention on Washington by focusing on the years of back-channel communiqués and internal strategy debates in Moscow as well as Prague and East Berlin.

The exposure of England's global misdeeds.

The sands are shifting in America's public consciousness. One action has torn the country apart in a debate over the meaning of right and wrong, and Reese Greenwood is not about to stand by as the American people support the rantings of a mad man. But how far will people go to take a stand for what they believe in? Told through the perspective of an underground rapper with a political bone to pick, Max Bemis' gripping story explores a scenario in which we watch modern society gradually evolve into an evil empire. Collects issues #5-8.

From Chicago to Toronto to Shanghai, cities around the world have sprouted “iconic” buildings by celebrity architects like Frank Gehry and Daniel Libeskind that compete for attention both on the skyline and in the media. But in recent years, criticism of these extreme “gestural” structures, known for their often-exaggerated forms, has been growing. Miles Glendinning’s impassioned polemic, Architecture’s Evil Empire, looks at how today’s trademark architectural individualism stretches beyond the well-known works and ultimately extends to the entire built environment. Glendinning examines how the global empire of the current modernism emerged—particularly in relation to the excesses of global capitalism—and explains its key organizational and architectural features, placing its most influential theorists and designers in a broader context of history and artistic movements. Arguing against the excesses of iconic architecture, Glendinning advocates a vision of modern renewal that seeks to remedy the shattered and alienated look he sees in contemporary architecture. Mingling scholarship with wry humor and a genuine concern for the state of architecture, Architecture’s Evil Empire will raise many heated debates and appeal to a wide range of readers, from architects to historians, interested in the built environment.

This is a study based on interviews with leading French journalist, Christine Ockrent, where de Marenches, head of the French Secret Service for eleven years, expresses personal views on the invisible war - the East-West conflict - and on the wars in the Middle East, African relations, Cambodia and Libya, terrorism and the Greenpeace affair. The book concludes with his own master plan for the West.

Ruthless godfather John Gilligan controlled a colossal drug empire and a mob of Dublin gangland's most dangerous criminals. Violence and the threat of murder kept terrified witnesses silent and other gangsters in fear. Gilligan thought himself untouchable and above the law--until his gang crossed the line by killing Irish journalist Veronica Guerin in cold blood. Evil Empire tells the chilling inside story of Gilligan's rise to power, his savage gang, and the truth about the horrifying murder that shocked the world. Also told is the behind-the-scenes drama of the dedicated police squad who waged an unprecedented four-year war to smash "Factory" John's Evil Empire.