“Maren has spent much of the last 20 years in Africa, first as an aid worker, later as a journalist. He witnessed at close range a harrowing series of wars, famines and natural disasters. In The Road to Hell he tells how CARE unwittingly assisted a Somali dictator in building a political and economic power base. How the U.N., Save the Children and many other nongovernmental organizations provided raw materials for ethnic factions who subsequently threatened genocidal massacres in Rwanda and Burundi. He brings first-hand reports of African farmers, Western aid workers and corrupt politicians from many countries joined together in a vicious circle of self-interest. Above all, he heralds an important truth: humanitarian intervention and foreign-aid activity is necessarily political. It gets hijacked by powerful charities and agricultural interests. It is cynically manipulated by local strongmen to control rebellious populations. And it is the last refuge of Western colonialism.”

Publisher: Free
Hardback: 302 pages

“A prominent lawyer for the criminally insane recounts some of his most dramatic and bizarre cases in a trenchant assessment of a legal system gone awry. As the stories unfold, we witness an idealistic young lawyer become ever more troubled as he succeeds, often through his brilliant courtroom strategy, in gaining freedom for those who leave only to kill again. We also hear frightening tales of a system so inept that a serial killer who has committed numerous rapes and murders is released because a representative from the D.A.’s office forgets to show up at his hearing… We also hear rare stories of redemption, including that of the cannibal killer who meets a psychotic murderess in the state psychiatric hospital. They fall in love, are eventually released, marry and now live peaceably in one of New York’s nicer suburbs.”

Publisher: Free
Hardback: 226 pages

“In vivid portraits of some of history’s most intriguing gurus, from David Koresh to Freud and Jung to Jesus, Storr examines why we are so enthralled with certain dogmatic figures who play on our need for certainty. Gurus are extraordinary individuals who cast doubt upon current psychiatric distinctions between sanity and madness… Storr reveals how the adoration for the guru can so easily corrupt him and explains why certain gurus become moral parasites while others become spiritual beacons.” Also covers Rudolph Steiner, Gurdjieff, Rajneesh and Ignatius of Loyola.”

Publisher: Free
Hardback: 253 pages
Illustrated