Kidnapping is a crime that was alien to Nigeria until recently when the youths of the oil-rich Niger Delta Region began to use it as a political weapon to register agitation against economic marginalization by the Federal Government. It was subsequently hijacked and downgraded by criminals in other parts of the Country who used it as an easy tool for illegal acquisition of wealth. The kidnappers, therefore, x-rays the origin of the crime, its impact on Nigerian polity and the measures the Federal Government adopted to curb it. This is a story that points an accusing finger on the Society as the major cause of numerous crimes (including kidnapping) perpetrated by man against humanity. To instil godliness in a people, the Society must, therefore, be restructured aright.

First published in 1994, Kidnappers in Philadelphia: Isaac Hopper's Tales of Oppression 1780-1843 collates Isaac Hoppers original tales. Complementing the original seventy-nine compiled narratives, this expanded edition features "The Life of Cooper" and seven newly discovered slave narratives published by Isaac Hopper in the National Anti-Slavery Standard between June and September 1840. The original index of planter's names and a new comprehensive general index will help readers locate valuable historical information.

This pioneering work examines prostitution in Shanghai from the late nineteenth century to the present. Drawn mostly from the daughters and wives of the working poor and declassé elites, prostitutes in Shanghai were near the bottom of class and gender hierarchies. Yet they were central figures in Shanghai urban life, entering the historical record whenever others wanted to appreciate, castigate, count, regulate, cure, pathologize, warn about, rescue, eliminate, or deploy them as a symbol in a larger social panorama. Over the past century, prostitution has been understood in many ways: as a source of urbanized pleasures, a profession full of unscrupulous and greedy schemers, a changing site of work for women, a source of moral danger and physical disease, a marker of national decay, and a sign of modernity. For the Communist leadership of the 1950s, the elimination of prostitution symbolized China's emergence as a strong, healthy, and modern nation. In the past decade, as prostitution once again has become a recognized feature of Chinese society, it has been incorporated into a larger public discussion about what kind of modernity China should seek and what kind of sex and gender arrangements should characterize that modernity. Prostitutes, like every other non-elite group, did not record their own lives. How can sources generated by intense public argument about the "larger" meanings of prostitution be read for clues to those lives? Hershatter makes use of a broad range of materials: guidebooks to the pleasure quarters, collections of anecdotes about high-class courtesans, tabloid gossip columns, municipal regulations prohibiting street soliciting, police interrogations of streetwalkers and those accused of trafficking in women, newspaper reports on court cases involving both courtesans and streetwalkers, polemics by Chinese and foreign reformers, learned articles by Chinese scholars commenting on the world history of prostitution and analyzing its local causes, surveys by doctors and social workers on sexually transmitted disease in various Shanghai populations, relief agency records, fictionalized accounts of the scams and sufferings of prostitutes, memoirs by former courtesan house patrons, and interviews with former officials and reformers. Although a courtesan may never set pen to paper, we can infer a great deal about her strategizing and working of the system through the vast cautionary literature that tells her customers how not to be defrauded by her. Newspaper accounts of the arrests and brief court testimonies of Shanghai streetwalkers let us glimpse the way that prostitutes positioned themselves to get the most they could from the legal system. Without recourse to direct speech, Hershatter argues, these women have nevertheless left an audible trace. Central to this study is the investigation of how things are known and later remembered, and how, later still, they are simultaneously apprehended and reinvented by the historian.

The first installment in an action-adventure series about a boy on a rescue mission—part Pinocchio, part fantasy, and all fun! Meet Charlie. He lives a quiet life with his protective father, an inventor and clockmaker. When Charlie’s father is kidnapped by a shadowy group called the Anti-Human League, it’s up to Charlie to save him. But the league’s plan is much more sinister than Charlie could have imagined. And as he unravels their secrets, he also uncovers his father’s own secrets—about his family, the league, and even himself. . . . Can Charlie and his gang—a terrifying but well-meaning troll and a pair of high-flying young aeronauts—rescue Charlie’s father from the dastardly villains who have kidnapped him? And will Charlie be able to come to terms with who he really is? The journey begins here! “Reminiscent of both Pinocchio and The Great Mouse Detective, this novel is tailor-made for young readers who love adventure narratives and steampunk fiction.” —Kirkus “A page-turning adventure.” —School Library Journal “The fast-paced plot is action-packed. . . . [The Kidnap Plot] should satisfy fans of fantasy and adventure.” —Publishers Weekly

An illuminating look at how Philadelphia's antebellum free Black community defended themselves against kidnappings and how this "street diplomacy" forced Pennsylvanians to confront the politics of slavery. As the most southern of northern cities in a state that bordered three slave states, antebellum Philadelphia maintained a long tradition of both abolitionism and fugitive slave activity. Although Philadelphia's Black community lived in a free city in a free state, they faced constant threats to their personal safety and freedom. Enslavers, kidnappers, and slave catchers prowled the streets of Philadelphia in search of potential victims, violent anti-Black riots erupted in the city, and white politicians legislated to undermine Black freedom. In Street Diplomacy, Elliott Drago illustrates how the political and physical conflicts that arose over fugitive slave removals and the kidnappings of free Black people forced Philadelphians to confront the politics of slavery. Pennsylvania was legally a free state, at the street level and in the lived experience of its Black citizens, but Pennsylvania was closer to a slave state due to porous borders and the complicity of white officials. Legal contests between slavery and freedom at the local level triggered legislative processes at the state and national level, which underscored the inability of white politicians to resolve the paradoxes of what it meant for a Black American to inhabit a free state within a slave society. Piecing together fragmentary source material from archives, correspondence, genealogies, and newspapers, Drago examines these conflicts in Philadelphia from 1820 to 1850. Studying these timely struggles over race, politics, enslavement, and freedom in Philadelphia will encourage scholars to reexamine how Black freedom was not secure in Pennsylvania or in the wider United States.

This book analyzes kidnapping in various forms and from various perspectives. First it argues that kidnapping, including the threat of kidnapping, reflects a breakdown in the mechanisms of social control in society. This volume also discusses the ways governments and para-military and terrorist groups employ kidnappings as part of their foreign and domestic policy. This analysis evaluates why and under what conditions governments, para-military and terrorist groups decide to abduct individuals and groups. It emphasizes how individuals, groups, and governments employ abductions to achieve their psychological, social, religious, and political objectives. This analysis also examines the ways in which cultural traditions in different societies emerge to foster behaviors such as bride abductions. Moreover, this book addresses the extent to which social change modifies these cultural patterns. Suitable for students and researchers, mental health practitioners, and law enforcement, this volume is a unique analysis of our contemporary understanding of kidnapping and violence, and the social, psychological, political, and cultural motivations for such an act.