By Human Rights Watch

The 61-page report, “A Hazard to Human Rights: Autonomous Weapons Systems and Digital Decision-Making,” finds that autonomous weapons, which select and apply force to targets based on sensor rather human inputs, would contravene the rights to life, peaceful assembly, privacy, and remedy as well as the principles of human dignity and non-discrimination. Technological advances and military investments are now spurring the rapid development of autonomous weapons systems that would operate without meaningful human control.

Human Rights Watch, April 28, 2025, p. 61

By Human Rights Watch

The 104-page report, “Punished for Seeking Change: Killings, Enforced Disappearances and Arbitrary Detention Following Venezuela’s 2024 Election,” documents human rights violations against protesters, bystanders, opposition leaders, and critics during post-electoral protests and the months that followed. It implicates Venezuelan authorities and pro-government groups, known as colectivos, in widespread abuses, including killings of protesters and bystanders; enforced disappearances of opposition party members, their relatives, and foreign nationals; arbitrary detention and prosecution, including of children; and torture and ill-treatment of detainees.

Human Rights Watch, April 30, 2025, p. 104

By Human Rights Watch

The 59-page report, “United States: Repeal the Alien Enemies Act, A Human Rights Argument,” describes how the Trump administration has utilized the act as a vehicle for its attempted end run around basic due process and human rights protections. Modern international law binds the United States to respect human rights through treaty frameworks and customary norms, many of which have been incorporated into US domestic law. The Alien Enemies Act is an archaic statute that predates these legal norms and is entirely incompatible with them.

Human Rights Watch, May 1, 2025, p. 59

By Human Rights Watch

The 54-page report, “Facing the Bulldozers: Iban Indigenous Resistance to the Timber Industry in Sarawak, Malaysia,” details how the Malaysian company Zedtee, part of the Shin Yang Group timber conglomerate, logged in the ancestral territory of the Iban community Rumah Jeffery without their consent. Human Rights Watch found that Zedtee’s conduct did not meet Sarawak’s laws and policies, or the terms of the Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme. Rather than hold Zedtee accountable, the Sarawak state government threatened to arrest protesters and demolish Rumah Jeffery’s village.

Human Rights Watch, May 4, 2025, p. 54

By Human Rights Watch

The 101-page report, “From Bad to Worse: The Deterioration of Media Freedom in Greece,” documents the hostile environment for independent media and journalists since the New Democracy government took office in July 2019, including harassment, intimidation, surveillance, and abusive lawsuits, all of which contribute to self-censorship and chill media freedom. Human Rights Watch also found the use of state funds to sway coverage, and editorial influence over public media, further exacerbating this climate. These conditions undermine freedom of expression and the public’s right to information.

Human Rights Watch, May 8, 2025, p. 101

By Human Rights Watch

The 155-page report, “The Gig Trap: Algorithmic, Wage and Labor Exploitation in Platform Work in the US” focuses on seven major companies operating in the US: Amazon Flex, DoorDash, Favor, Instacart, Lyft, Shipt, and Uber. These companies claim to offer gig workers “flexibility” but often end up paying them less than state or local minimum wages. Six of the seven companies use algorithms with opaque rules to assign jobs and determine wages, meaning that workers do not know how much they will be paid until after completing the job.

Human Rights Watch, May 12, 2025, p. 155

By Human Rights Watch

The 67-page report, “‘The Strategy Is to Break Us’: The US Expulsion of Third-Country Nationals to Costa Rica,” documents the US expulsions, which came after the US government held migrants and asylum seekers in abusive detention conditions – sometimes for weeks on end – while denying them due process and the right to seek asylum. The report also details Costa Rica’s months-long arbitrary detention of third-country nationals expelled from the US, as well as the mixed messages the Costa Rican government has given those third-country nationals.

Human Rights Watch, May 22, 2025, p. 67

By Human Rights Watch

The 69-page report, “‘They’re Putting Our Lives at Risk’: How Uganda’s Anti-LGBT Climate Unleashes Abuse,” documents the actions by Ugandan parliament members, government institutions, and other authorities that culminated in the enactment of the 2023 Anti-Homosexuality Act. Human Rights Watch found that the law has ramped up already existing abuse and discrimination against LGBT people to unprecedented heights. They also detailed the rights violations enabled by the law and the devastating impact it has had on the lives of LGBT people, activists, allies, and their families in Uganda.

Human Rights Watch, May 26, 2025, p. 69

By Human Rights Watch

The 98-page report, “‘They’re Ruining People’s Lives’: Bans on Gender-Affirming Care for Transgender Youth in the US,” documents the devastating consequences of these bans for transgender youth, including increased anxiety, depression, and, in seven reported instances, suicide attempts. Human Rights Watch found that these laws contribute to an increasingly hostile, anti-trans climate, compelling youth to hide their identities and socially withdraw. The bans also destabilize health care systems and undermine civil society and create geographic and financial challenges in accessing care. The impact has intensified since early 2025, when the administration of President Donald Trump took a series of executive actions escalating federal attacks on transgender rights.

Human Rights Watch, June 3, 2025, p. 98

By Human Rights Watch

The 93-page report, “Hunted From Above: Russia’s Use of Drones to Attack Civilians in Kherson, Ukraine” and an accompanying web feature, document how Russian forces appear to be deliberately or recklessly carrying out drone strikes against civilians and civilian objects with these mostly inexpensive commercially available drones. The attacks spread terror among the civilian population and cause them to fear leaving their homes, and have caused the depopulation of the two areas being targeted in Kherson.

Human Rights Watch, June 3, 2025, p. 93

By  Robert Louis Stevenson. Edited by Sidney Colvin and Colin Heston

“The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Parts XI–XIV”, collected in Volume XXV of the Swanston Edition of Stevenson’s works, brings to a close one of the most remarkable collections of literary correspondence in the English language. Edited with meticulous care and deep personal insight by Sidney Colvin, this final volume continues the chronicle of Stevenson’s life through his own words, offering readers a profound and intimate view of the author’s final years and enduring legacy.

These concluding parts of Stevenson’s letters span the last phase of his life, primarily focused on his time in Samoa, where he had settled permanently in 1890. Despite his ongoing battle with chronic illness, Stevenson remained intellectually and creatively active, producing some of his most mature and reflective work. His letters from this period are rich in philosophical insight, literary commentary, and political observation, particularly concerning the colonial tensions in the South Pacific and his advocacy for the Samoan people.

The correspondence in this volume is addressed to a wide and varied circle: family members, literary peers, publishers, and political figures. These letters reveal a man who, though physically isolated, remained deeply engaged with the world. They are filled with Stevenson’s characteristic wit, warmth, and eloquence, but also with a growing sense of urgency and introspection as he approached the end of his life.

Sidney Colvin’s editorial contributions are especially valuable in this volume. As Stevenson’s close friend and literary executor, Colvin provides detailed introductions, annotations, and contextual commentary that illuminate the personal and historical background of each letter. His work ensures that readers not only follow the narrative of Stevenson’s life but also understand the broader cultural and political forces at play during this period.

The Swanston Edition presents these letters with scholarly precision and literary sensitivity, making Volume XXV an essential resource for anyone interested in Stevenson’s life, Victorian literature, or the art of letter writing. The collection as a whole—spanning Volumes XXIII to XXV—offers a comprehensive and deeply human portrait of Stevenson, capturing his evolution from a restless young writer to a mature and morally engaged literary figure.

“The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, Parts XI–XIV” is more than a conclusion to a correspondence—it is a culmination of a life lived with passion, intellect, and integrity. Through these final letters, Stevenson’s voice continues to resonate, offering insight, inspiration, and a lasting connection to one of literature’s most enduring spirits.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 296p.

By B. F. Skinner

This fictional outline of a modern utopia has been a center of controversy ever since its publication in 1948. Set in the United States, it pictures a society in which human problems are solved by a scientific technology of human conduct.

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK, NEW YORK, 1948, 320 pages

By John G. Bellamy

Murder in the sixteenth century, which to English men and women of that time meant planned slaying, usually with an element of stealth or with the victim taken unawares, was not then a common crime; rather the reverse. For example, Sir Thomas Smith, the knowledgeable Tudor legal commentator, tells us that murder by poisoning was virtually unknown in his day. Also writing in the reign of Elizabeth I was William Harrison, who, in a contribution to Holinshed's Chronicles that dealt with the criminal law, its penalties and its impact on society, stated that, although manslaughter and "bloudie robberies" occurred "now and then," "we do not often heare of horrible, merciless, and wilfull murthers."1 Nor do other writers of the period who touch on criminal law or on crime and public order indicate anything different. These brief indications of a relatively low murder rate are borne out by statistics to be garnered from the extant assize records of the late sixteenth century. Because of the existence of victims' corpses, murder may well have been among the most reported of felonies (that is, reported to officers of the law), yet in Sussex and Cheshire in Elizabeth's reign only about 5 percent of all persons put on trial for felony were suspected murderers, while the relatively high rate of 8 percent in Kent has to be set against the trivial 1 percent in Essex. The overall impression is that probably about 1 in every 20 indicted felons was believed to be a murderer.

History Press Limited, Dec 1, 2008, 212 pages

By W. E. WOODWARD

For about a hundred and fifty years Tom Paine has been a target for abuse. Much of it has come from ignorance, and the clods of mental dirt that are flung when Paine’s name is mentioned are often cast by people who have never read anything that he wrote, and who know nothing about him except his name, has been called an atheist, a hater of Christ and a man steeped in sin. These lying epithets have become so deeply imbedded in the minds of men and women that they may never be wholly effaced, for popular Eate^like "popular ^steem^—furnishes its own nourishment and grows with the pas- ~sage~bf time.

E.P. Dutton & Company, 1945, 368p.

By Francesco Bruno M.D.

Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Japan, Jordan, Italy, Malaysia, the United States (State of New York), Singapore, Sweden, and the United Kingdom participated. In each country, local researchers conducted the study following a plan developed for the whole project. The multidisciplinary methodology included four phases: a comparative analysis of antidrug legislation, preliminary national reports, eight vignettes administered to different groups to gain information on the perceptions of the justice system, and guided interviews conducted with drug addicts. The data were quantified, and evaluation scales were constructed for purposes of comparison. Binary automatic scoring was applied to data from the vignettes and interviews. The data are shown graphically in 97 tables. Three conclusions are emphasized. First, drug abuse is apparently both quantitatively and qualitatively more serious where the system is perceived as less harsh and more permissive. Second, a significant correlation exists between knowledge of the law and the efficacy of the system. Third, a close association exists between the abuse of drugs and criminal behavior. These points are important for policymakers to consider. The studies in New York, Sweden, and the United Kingdom are outlined. Attachments include a 560-item bibliography and a list of experts and researchers involved in the study. Other publications from the United Nations Social Defense Research Institute are also listed.

United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, 1984, 246p.

By George Caitlin

In this book I have endeavoured to provide a guide to political theory intelligible to the common reader, with quotations from the original sources sufficiently extensive to enable him to sample for himself the “taste” and “colour” of these writings. This history of theory has been placed against brief descriptions, as background, of the civilization of the times, as the reader passes down the avenues of thought from age to age. The stress, however, is upon modern times and upon past thought and problems so far as they bear upon the rival philosophies of these times. The scholar will know that I have said nothing new—it is not my intention—but the student will, I hope, find the book sufficiently complete, even if it is a general public for which it is written, which requires some guidance in the adventure of living as citizens in these perilous, as

WHITTLESEY HOUSE, 1939, 819p.

By Bula Matari

A GOOD while ago, some of my friends asked me what I was working at. When I told them that I wanted to write a life of Henry Morton Stanley and had, with this end in view, been studying the subject for several years, they were very much surprised. What, they inquired, could interest me in a man whose doings had been of little moment in his lifetime and would leave no con- spicuous traces in history—a man whose name had al- ready lapsed into oblivion?

Jacob Wassermann, LIVERIGHT•INC•PUBLISHERS, 1933, 375p.

By Massimo Salvadori

This small work was originally published in the United States for the use of undergraduate students. It was taken from lectures which formed part of the course on Modern European History which I gave in 1949-52 at Smith College in Massachusetts. There was no lack of voluminous works on communism ancient or modern, soviet or other. What did lack was a short introduction to the study of contemporary communism for the use of those who, without pretensions of becoming specialists in political science, want to form an adequately clear idea of a movement which at present affects all of humanity in one way or another.

Holt, 1952, 178 pages

By Paul Lewinson

The writer of this study has many indebtednesses to acknowledge for help in its prosecution. The greatest, it is hoped, is in some small measure discharged in the dedication. The study was begun at the London School of Economics. Intensive work was commenced on the 1865-1900 period at the Robert Brookings Graduate School in Washington (not to be confused with the present Brookings Institution), under the guidance of Professor William E. Dodd. A Social Science Research Council fellowship made possible the field trip and the questionnaire on which the last chapters are based. Many persons have given invaluable help on the form of the manuscript: the Faculty of the Brookings School, several Southerners white and Negro, and especially Jean Atherton Flexner, my “best friend and severest critic.” The scores of Southerners, many of them busy persons, who sacrificed time to discuss the local situation with the writer, would in some cases feel ill repaid were their names to be published here. Contacts with them were in many cases established through the cooperation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Urban League; letters of introduction came also from Dr. Abraham Flexner, and from Mr. Will Alexander of the Interracial Cooperation Commission. The clipping files of Tuskegee Institute, a mine of valuable information in charge of Dr. Monroe Work, were opened to the writer.

Oxford University Press, 1932, 304 pages

By Madeline Levine, PhD

In this ground-breaking book on the children of affluence, a well-known clinical psychologist exposes the epidemic of emotional problems that are disabling America’s privileged youth, thanks, in large part, to normalized, intrusive parenting that stunts the crucial development of the self.

In recent years, numerous studies have shown that bright, charming, seemingly confident and socially skilled teenagers from affluent, loving families are experiencing epidemic rates of depression, substance abuse, and anxiety disorders&—rates higher than in any other socioeconomic group of American adolescents. Materialism, pressure to achieve, perfectionism, and disconnection are combining to create a perfect storm that is devastating children of privilege and their parents alike.

Harper Collins, Oct 13, 2009, 256 pages