Bøker av Sharif Gemie

A compelling tale of love, loss and hope in the ruins of World War Two. In 1945, an idealistic young couple set out from London to work in Europe. Edmund and Eleanor feel called to be part of the humanitarian mission to help the millions of people displaced by conflict and fascism. Back home, Edmund was a bookseller and Eleanor an ambulance-driver, fired up by socialism and feminism. They aim to help refugees rebuild their lives, but volunteering for a UN agency means confronting bureaucracy and corruption. Edmund struggles to lead a UN humanitarian team, while Eleanor grows disillusioned. On top of these problems, Eleanor hides a troubling secret which will drop like a bombshell into the marriage. From Britain, to France, Germany, Poland and beyond. A poignant story of a couple struggling to understand each other with the backdrop of Europe at a crossroads.

The period of the 'long' Second World War (1936-1948) was marked by mass movements of diverse populations. This book looks at: Spanish Republicans fleeing Franco's Spain in 1939, the French civilians trying to escape the Nazi invasion in 1940, and the millions of people displaced or expelled by the forces of Hitler's Third Reich.

An analysis of a hundred prominent, commercially successful works by women, both Muslim and non-Muslim, concerning Muslim living in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, the UK and the USA.

This book provides a detailed analysis of the political arguments about the place of Muslims in contemporary France, and also discusses the ideas put forward by a range of Muslim thinkers. France has become the setting for one of the most important conflicts in the modern world. On the one hand, it possesses a rigidly organized, centralized state, whose bureaucrats and civil servants are animated by a code of secular activism. On the other hand, France is also the home for Europe's largest Muslim minority, variously estimated at numbering between four and six million people. This means that in terms of simple numbers, France can be counted as the world's fifteenth Islamic power. Previous conflicts with religion have left a deep impression on French political culture: from the sixteenth and seventeenth-century conflicts between Catholics and Protestants played to the formation of the collaborationist Vichy government in 1940. In recent decades, Muslims have been stigmatized as an irreconcilable minority unable to adapt to the secular culture of the majority of French citizens. This work draws out the political implications of the current conflict. It is based on events and publications produced in a single five year period, beginning with the shock of the 2002 Presidential elections, in which Le Pen was the second most successful candidate, ranging through the legislation of March 2004 which banned the Islamic headscarf from French state schools, and which sparked off a series of bad-tempered exchanges between left and right-wing French nationalists, anti-racism campaigners, secularists, anti-clericals and a variety of Muslim authors.

Brittany presents a paradox: the region was incorporated into France in 1532, yet, over the years, signs of a sense of separation from France are growing clearer. This work provides an introduction to identity politics in Brittany, analysing its special status within France: the region that is a potential rival centre to Paris.

This textbook provides an ideal introduction to nineteenth-century France: a 'Century of Revolutions'.