The Call of Islam, in many ways, was my youth. The year 1984, when the organization was founded, was also my matric year. Some of the first recruits for the organization came from my very own matric class; others were then recruited from my fellow first-year students at the University of Cape Town. Besides me, the other three founding members of the Call of Islam were Ebrahim Rasool, Shamiel Manie, and Farid Esack. Rasool was not just a fellow founding member; we grew up together, and our parents served on the same mosque committee. Esack was my principal from the As Salaam College in KwaZulu Natal, where I studied Islam in 1983. Manie and I were fellow members of the Muslim Student Association that gave us our grounding in seeing Islam broader than just religious rituals. Our circle before the founding of the Call of Islam met in the back rooms of our different family homes and when Esack hosted our get-togethers in his apartment. So we shared space, we shared money, and we even shared each others clothes. It was no coincidence that our first rally should be at Primrose Park mosque, Masjidus Sabireen, as Primrose Park (in the Western Cape, South Africa) is where Rasool and I lived. We grew up in that mosque, and we knew all its successive imams and, of course, the mosque committee. Later, our first headquarters (for many years) would be the outbuildings of my parents home in Primrose Park, where we held our executive meetings, conducted our adult classes, and even made our banners. Allie Parker, our reliable and indulgent printer, had his printing works in a neighboring suburb in Greenhaven. It was therefore tempting to write a story of the Call of Islam, which is a personal account.

A history of New Zealanders and the sports that we have made our own, from the Māori world to today’s professional athletes. '. . . those two mighty products of the land, the Canterbury lamb and the All Blacks, have made New Zealand what she is in spite of politicians’ claims to the contrary’, wrote Dick Brittenden in 1954. ‘For many in New Zealand, prowess at sport replaces the social graces; in the pubs, during the furious session between 5pm and closing time an hour later, the friend of a relative of a horse trainer is a veritable patriarch. No matador in Madrid, no tenor in Turin could be sure of such flattering attention.’ Why did rugby become much more important than soccer in New Zealand? What role have Māori played in our sporting life? Do we really ‘punch above our weight’ in international sport? Does sport still define our national identity? Viewing New Zealand sport as activity and as imagination, Sport and the New Zealanders is a major history of a central strand of New Zealand life.

Ireland's amateur boxing story is one of blood, sweat and tears – and not just in the ring. Ireland is one of the world's leading nations in the sport. This is the inside story of a great tradition – a story of physical prowess, gritty determination, devastating defeats, sheer bad luck, infamous 'he was robbed' judging decisions, and the ultimate goal of Olympic glory. The boxers' lives play out against a backdrop of the economic woes of the 1950s, the Northern Ireland Troubles, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the Soviet Union. Sean McGoldrick shines a spotlight on Ireland's 'Medal Factory', the sometimes-contentious High Performance Unit, which has nurtured Irish boxers on the road to winning seven Olympic medals. Punching Above Their Weight captures the rollercoaster ride of such legendary boxers and coaches as John McNally, Fred Tiedt, Barry McGuigan, Hugh Russell, Billy Walsh, Michael Carruth, Zaur Antia, Wayne McCullough, Paddy Barnes, Kenny Egan, Darren Sutherland, John Joe Nevin, and Katie Taylor, among many others. A countback of over seventy years of Ireland's 'sweet science'.

“Quick-paced, well-researched and well-illustrated, this is the first new history of Canada’s armed forces in decades.” — J. L. Granatstein, author of Canada’s Army Punching Above Our Weight takes readers on a riveting exploration spanning one hundred and fifty years of Canadian forces. This photograph-rich history of 150 years of the Canadian military traces the evolution of the country’s armed forces from a small, underfunded, poorly trained militia to the modern, effective military it is today. From the Red River Resistance and the Boer War through the world wars to modern peacekeeping and the long war in Afghanistan, David A. Borys details the conflicts and operations that Canadian soldiers have served in. He highlights the key battles, among them Amiens, the Scheldt Estuary, and Operation Medusa; the significant people, including Louis Riel, Arthur Currie, and Guy Simonds; and the decisive moments, such as the passing of conscription in August 1917, Canada’s declaration of war in 1939, and the peacekeeping crises of the 1990s, that came to define the scope of Canada’s participation in international conflicts and cement its global reputation. Borys also explores the challenges that the Canadian nation and its military have faced over those years, including major cultural and demographic shifts, a continual struggle for resources from generally disinterested governments, battlefield failures, and notorious and shocking scandals, along with ever-changing global threats. Punching Above Our Weight brings to light a new perspective on the Canadian military and its place in the world.

Compelling narratives are integral to successful foreign policy, military strategy, and international relations. Yet often narrative is conceived so broadly it can be hard to identify. The formation of strategic narratives is informed by the stories governments think their people tell, rather than those they actually tell. This book examines the stories told by a broad cross-section of British society about their country’s past, present, and future role in war, using in-depth interviews with 67 diverse citizens. It brings to the fore the voices of ordinary people in ways typically absent in public opinion research. Always at War complements a significant body of quantitative research into British attitudes to war, and presents an alternative case in a field dominated by US public opinion research. Rather than perceiving distinct periods between war and peace, British citizens see their nation as so frequently involved in conflict that they consider the country to be continuously at war. At present, public opinion appears to be a stronger constraint on Western defense policy than ever.

Through the rise of big data and the internet of things, terrorist organizations have been freed from geographic and logistical confines and now have more power than ever before to strike the average citizen directly at home. This, coupled with the inherently asymmetrical nature of cyberwarfare, which grants great advantage to the attacker, has created an unprecedented national security risk that both governments and their citizens are woefully ill-prepared to face. Examining cyber warfare and terrorism through a critical and academic perspective can lead to a better understanding of its foundations and implications. Cyber Warfare and Terrorism: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is an essential reference for the latest research on the utilization of online tools by terrorist organizations to communicate with and recruit potential extremists and examines effective countermeasures employed by law enforcement agencies to defend against such threats. Highlighting a range of topics such as cyber threats, digital intelligence, and counterterrorism, this multi-volume book is ideally designed for law enforcement, government officials, lawmakers, security analysts, IT specialists, software developers, intelligence and security practitioners, students, educators, and researchers.

The Persian Gulf state of Qatar has fewer than 2 million inhabitants, virtually no potable water, and has been an independent nation only since 1971. Yet its enormous oil and gas wealth has permitted the ruling al Thani family to exert a disproportionately large influence on regional and even international politics. Qatar is, as Mehran Kamrava explains in this knowledgeable and incisive account of the emirate, a "tiny giant": although severely lacking in most measures of state power, it is highly influential in diplomatic, cultural, and economic spheres. Kamrava presents Qatar as an experimental country, building a new society while exerting what he calls "subtle power." It is both the headquarters of the global media network Al Jazeera and the site of the U.S. Central Command's Forward Headquarters and the Combined Air Operations Center. Qatar has been a major player during the European financial crisis, it has become a showplace for renowned architects, several U.S. universities have established campuses there, and it will host the FIFA World Cup in 2022. Qatar's effective use of its subtle power, Kamrava argues, challenges how we understand the role of small states in the global system. Given the Gulf state's outsized influence on regional and international affairs, this book is a critical and timely account of contemporary Qatari politics and society.