Global Issues Book Group
The Global Issues Book Group, reads and discusses books on the vital Political, Economic, Environmental and Social issues that challenge humankind in the 21st Century.
February 2019
The Last Girl
Co-Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize 2018
Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. On August 15, 2014, when Nadia was just twenty-one years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to be sold into slavery. Nadia was taken to Mosul and forced, along with thousands of other Yazidi girls, into the ISIS slave trade. After being repeatedly raped and beaten, she managed a narrow escape through the streets of Mosul, finding shelter in the home of a Sunni Muslim family whose eldest son risked his life to smuggle her to safety.
Today, Nadia's story has forced the world to pay attention to the ongoing genocide in Iraq. It is a call to action, a testament to the human will to survive, and a love letter to a lost country, a fragile community, and a family torn apart by war.
"This devastating memoir unflinchingly recounts Murad's experiences and questions the complicity of witnesses who acquiesced in the suffering of others." -The New Yorker
Tuesday, February 12th at 6:30 PM
March 2019
The Curse of Bigness
We live in an age of extreme corporate concentration, in which global industries are controlled by just a few giant firms--big banks, big phama, and big tech, just to name a few. But concern over what Louis Brandeis called the "curse of bigness" can no longer remain the province of specialist lawyers and economists, for it has spilled over into policy and politics, even threatening democracy itself. History suggests that tolerance of inequality and failing to control excessive corporate power may prompt the rise of populism, nationalism, extremist politicians, and fascist regimes. In short, as Wu warns, we are in grave danger of repeating signature errors of the twentieth century. The San Francisco Chronicle calls the book, "A bracing intellectual tour de force."
Tuesday, March 12th at 6:30 PM
