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Big Law in Latin America and Spain
by Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo Manuel GómezThis book, part of the Stanford Law School research project on the future of the legal profession, thoroughly examines the future of “big law,” defined as the large and mid-size multiservice highly specialized law firms that provide sophisticated, complex and generally costly legal work to multinationals, large and mid-size domestic corporations, and other business clients. By systematically gathering, assessing, and analyzing the best available quantitative and qualitative data on the first tier of the corporate legal services market of Latin America and Spain, and interviewing a broadly representative sample of corporate legal officers, law firm partners, and other stakeholders in each of the countries covered, this book provides a nuanced perspective on changes in “big law” during the last two decades until the present. It also explores the factors that are driving these changes, and the implications for the future of legal profession, legal education and its relationship with the corporate sector and society in general.
Big League Babble On: The Misadventures of a Rabble-Rousing Sportscaster and Why He Should Be Dead By Now
by John GallagherVeteran radio and television personality John Gallagher’s salacious, voracious, and dangerously delicious memoirs of a life lived on the edge in the midst of some of the world’s biggest celebrities. Long-time sportscaster John Gallagher has had close to four decades of hosting some of the top-rated radio and TV shows in Canada and, while he was at it, doing enough drugs to wipe out a small village. Along the way there was plenty of drinking, cavorting, and gallivanting with some of the coolest, biggest, and baddest sports stars and Hollywood celebs around. In Big League Babble On, John spares no one, not even himself. Read about his nights boozing with the likes of Tony Curtis, Stevie Nicks, Colin Farrell, and Leafs head coach Pat Burns. Find out how partying with Gallagher saved Mark Wahlberg’s life. Or how he once came a little too close to Princess Di. And the time Muhammad Ali stole John’s Penthouse magazine … for the articles. Gallagher is a pop culture Cuisinart and a walking — but mostly talking — sports almanac. From hot tubbing with Wendel Clark to “chasing skirt” with Robbie Alomar, Gallagher has met (and often partied with) all of the greats. This book will give you an accredited backstage pass and get you close enough to sniff Bo Derek’s perfume (Tigress by Fabergé?).
Big Lies: The right Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts The Truth
by Joe ConasonJoe Conason, whose investigation of the conservative witchhunt of Bill Clinton became a major national bestseller, takes on the most common arguments, myths, and fallacies propounded by the right- and exposes them as the smear tactics they really are. A powerful rebuttal to books such as Bias or Slander, Big Lies is essential reading in an era of right-wing bullying and political conformity.
Big Life Lessons from that Still, Small Voice
by Lisa MasonIn Big Life Lessons from that Still, Small Voice, Lisa Mason returns to her journalistic roots to chronicle the way God speaks to us. Combining present-day observations with stories of the past, her tale takes readers on an honest, sometimes heartbreaking, journey. From witnessing the ravages of HIV on the human body, to accepting an Emmy award, to experiencing the shock of the Oklahoma City bombing, this non-fiction text does not attempt to convert readers to Christianity, nor is it filled with scripture. It does, however, remind readers that to know God, one only has to listen for His Still, Small Voice.
Big Little Book of Jewish Wit & Wisdom
by Sally Ann BerkThis small, chunky volume presents the witty, wonderful, deadpan and droll insight of the Jewish culture. Chapters on Wisdom, Mitzvahs, Dybbuks, Proverbs, Jokes, Curses, Conventions, Mores (ethics), Love & Marriage, Men & Women, Children & Family provide reflections gleaned from a wealth of ancient, traditional and modern sources. The range of wise observations on the ways of the world, snappy one-liners, stories and expressions captures the spirit of the Jews throughout the centuries. Illustrated with sixty watercolor paintings, The Big Little Book of Jewish Wit & Wisdom will delight and engage even the toughest Jewish mother.Some examples:When we hear a baby laugh, it is the loveliest thing that can happen to us.--Sigmund FreudA child's wisdom is also wisdom.--Yiddish proverbI don't believe in the afterlife, although I am bringing a change of underwear.--Woody AllenMay you lose all your teeth but one, and may that one have a cavity.--Anonymous (Yiddish curse)
Big Little Hotel: Small Hotels Designed by Architects
by Donna KacmarThis book showcases small hotels, all located in the United States, designed by architects who use light and materials in interesting and intentional ways. The designs also deliberately connect to their local history, context, or land – in many cases all three. Both the architecture and the operations harmonize with the place, whether that is a bustling city, small town, or natural area. Many are new buildings but some are adaptive reuse projects or renovations of historic properties, extending the connectivity of the place into the future. A condensed history of lodging helps to place the many typologies and histories of hospitality in relationship to world events and includes the many factors that influence hotel development such as business practices, technology, and even politics. Hotels are influenced by larger trends and innovations in hospitality such as the emergence of a variety of creative possibilities for future travel. A final chapter includes speculation on travel trends and encourages us all to wander more intentionally.
Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self
by Alex Tizon&“Alex Tizon fearlessly penetrates the core of not just what it means to be male and Asian in America, but what it means to be human anywhere.&”—Cheryl Strayed, New York Times bestselling author Shame, Alex Tizon tells us, is universal—his own happened to be about race. To counteract the steady diet of American television and movies that taught Tizon to be ashamed of his face, his skin color, his height, he turned outward. (&“I had to educate myself on my own worth. It was a sloppy, piecemeal education, but I had to do it because no one else was going to do it for me.&”) Tizon illuminates his youthful search for Asian men who had no place in his American history books or classrooms. And he tracks what he experienced as seismic change: the rise of powerful, dynamic Asian men like Yahoo! cofounder Jerry Yang, actor Ken Watanabe, and NBA starter Jeremy Lin. Included in this new edition of Big Little Man is Alex Tizon&’s &“My Family&’s Slave&”—2017&’s best-read digital article. Published only weeks after Tizon&’s death in 2017, it delivers a provocative, haunting, and ultimately redemptive coda. &“A ruthlessly honest personal story and a devastating critique of contemporary American culture.&”—The Seattle Times &“Part candid memoir, part incisive cultural study, Big Little Man addresses—and explodes—the stereotypes of Asian manhood. Alex Tizon writes with acumen and courage, and the result is a book at once illuminating and, yes, liberating.&”—Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl &“This personal narrative of self-education and growth will engage any reader captivated by the sources of American, and Asian-American, manhood—its multitude of inheritances and prospects.&”—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Big Lonely Doug: The Story of One of Canada’s Last Great Trees
by Harley RustadIn the tradition of John Vaillant’s modern classic The Golden Spruce comes a story of the unlikely survival of one of the largest and oldest trees in Canada.On a cool morning in the winter of 2011, a logger named Dennis Cronin was walking through a stand of old-growth forest near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. He came across a massive Douglas fir the height of a twenty-storey building. Instead of allowing the tree to be felled, he tied a ribbon around the trunk, bearing the words “Leave Tree.” The forest was cut but the tree was saved. The solitary Douglas fir, soon known as Big Lonely Doug, controversially became the symbol of environmental activists and their fight to protect the region’s dwindling old-growth forests.Originally featured as a long-form article in The Walrus that garnered a National Magazine Award (Silver), Big Lonely Doug weaves the ecology of old-growth forests, the legend of the West Coast’s big trees, the turbulence of the logging industry, the fight for preservation, the contention surrounding ecotourism, First Nations land and resource rights, and the fraught future of these ancient forests around the story of a logger who saved one of Canada's last great trees.
Big Loosh: The Unruly Life of Umpire Ron Luciano
by Jim LeekeRon Luciano was a college football star, baseball umpire, TV broadcaster, and best-selling author. He barged through the world with an outsized personality, entertaining many, offending a few, and hiding behind a cheerful and outrageous persona until life somehow proved unbearable. Everyone knew him, but nobody really did. Once an All-American tackle at Syracuse University, Luciano turned to umpiring after an injury derailed his professional football career, and he quickly moved up the Minor League ladder to reach the Majors in 1969. As a big, likable loser—Oliver Hardy in blue—he became a fan favorite in the American League, &“shooting&” runners with his forefinger, conducting a legendary feud with Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver, and entertaining writers with outlandish baseball stories—some of which were even true. Even as he added years to his umpiring career and was considered among the game&’s best, some players and managers thought his showmanship detracted from his abilities. He later became a baseball color analyst on national TV before coauthoring a series of rollicking best-selling sports books. Away from the game, he loved Shakespeare and birdwatching. But his upbeat public face was at odds with his private struggle with depression. His suicide at age fifty-seven shocked and puzzled friends, fans, and readers alike. In Big Loosh Jim Leeke recounts Luciano&’s unlikely career, detailing his life as athlete, arbiter, sportscaster, writer, and mythmaker while separating fact from fiction amid the fanciful stories he loved to spin. As a friend said of Luciano, &“If you didn&’t like this man, you didn&’t like people.&”
Big Love Cooking: 75 Recipes for Satisfying, Shareable Comfort Food
by Joey CampanaroFrom Joey Campanaro, the lovable chef and owner of popular Little Owl restaurant in New York City!Big Love Cooking features 75 accessible recipes infused with Mediterranean flavors inspired by Joey's Italian-American family.This is simple, authentic food, with generous servings and nourishing, shareable meals.• Includes stories from the restaurant, historical NYC photographs, and conversational advice• Dishes include Little Owl Crispy Chicken, Ricotta Cavatelli with Tomato Broth, Bacon, and Fava Beans, and Brioche French Toast with Stewed Strawberries.• Features warm, inviting photography that emulates the family-style mealsWith accessible recipes and familiar ingredients, this cookbook is perfect for big family meals that will please a crowd.Recipes include mouth-watering dishes like Littleneck Clams with Juicy Bread, Mom-Mom Pizza, and Pork Chop with Parmesan Butter Beans.• Big Love Cooking is a return to hearty platters and heartwarming comfort food with a strong sense of place.• Perfect for cooks interested in Mediterranean cuisine and Italian-American favorites• A great gift for the home cook that is interested in hearty, delicious Italian meals over trends• Add it to the shelf with cookbooks like Carmine's Family-Style Cookbook by Michael Ronis, The Meatball Shop Cookbook by Daniel Holzman and Michael Chernow, and The Frankies Spuntino Kitchen Companion & CookingManual by Peter Falcinelli, Frank Castronovo, and Frank Meehan.
Big Love: The Power of Living with a Wide-Open Heart
by Scott Stabile"I look to Scott for wisdom and leadership and he has delivered both with Big Love. This book opened my heart and mind and I'm forever grateful."—Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times–bestseller Love Warrior What happens when you fully commit yourself to love? Endless good, insists Scott Stabile, who found that out by overcoming plenty of bad. His parents were murdered when he was fourteen. Nine years later, his brother died of a heroin overdose. Soon after that, Scott joined a cult that dominated his life for thirteen years before he summoned the courage to walk away. In Big Love, his insightful and refreshingly honest collection of personal essays, Scott relates these profound experiences as well as everyday struggles and triumphs in ways that are universally applicable, uplifting, and laugh-out-loud funny. Whether silencing shame, rebounding after failure, or moving forward despite fears, Scott shares hard-won insights that consistently return readers to love, both of themselves and others.
Big Love: The Undeniable Joy of Following Your Heart
by Scott StabileWHAT IS LOVE INVITING YOU TO DO RIGHT NOW? That’s the question Scott Stabile asks himself more than any other these days. When he finds himself mired in self-loathing, arguing with a loved one, or ready to pounce on an insulting online comment, this question invites answers from a generous heart rather than a fearful mind and leads to a much more peaceful way of being. Couldn’t we all use a little more peace? It’s no easy thing to live in a world with so much pain and suffering, and Scott has had his share of heartbreak. His parents were murdered when he was fourteen, his brother died from a heroin overdose, and Scott had to navigate years of shame around his sexuality. In Big Love, his insightful, refreshingly honest, and deeply relatable collection of essays, Scott relates these profound experiences, as well as everyday struggles and triumphs, in ways that are universally applicable, uplifting, and laugh-out-loud funny. Whether he writes about silencing shame, rebounding from failure, being with grief, or befriending your fears, his words will make you laugh, cry, and nod your head vigorously. Most importantly, they’ll remind you that love is a choice — the choice that makes real transformation possible in your life and our world.
Big Machines (Professor Hoot's Science Comics #1)
by Greta BirchEvery day brings a new adventure for Professor Hoot - and a new learning experience. Today Professor Hoot is investigating what big machines are used for and how they can make our lives easier, from powerful bulldozers and towering cranes to the trains and planes that criss-cross the planet. An entertaining comic strip approach to KS1 science topics, Professor Hoot's Science Comics are accessible and full of fun. Each book is an adventure and a chance for readers to learn something new, before testing their knowledge at the end of each book in Professor Hoot's quiz. Collect each adventure: Big Machines; Dangerous Animals; Dinosaurs; Robots and AI; Space; Volcanoes and Earthquakes.
Big Machines (Readers Are Leaders Ser.)
by Rosemary GoldingThis series of delightful readers was designed to help teachers engage and motivate learners in the classroom. Each book is carefully graded and supports children in the early stages of learning English. These beautifully illustrated, full-colour books • provide the right level of reading support in the classroom • help learners reach grade-level competencies • help build fluency and confidence for lifelong reading success • encourage reading for pleasure • expose learners to different genres.
Big Machines, Level 1 (Dk Readers Level 1)
by Karen WallaceCrash! Scrape! Scrunch! A new park is being built. See Big Machines in action and find out what they do. For children who are just beginning to read and who have a limited vocabulary, these 32-page Level 1 books-about everything from tadpoles to puppies-use word repetition and simple sentences to convey meaning. Picture dictionary boxes with word labels "show" the meanings of words. These books contain between 400 and 450 words each, and they are 80 percent pictures and 20 percent text. The Dorling Kindersley Readers combine an enticing visual layout with high-interest, easy-to-read stories to captivate and delight young bookworms who are just getting started. Written by leading children's authors and compiled in consultation with literacy experts, these engaging books build reader confidence along with a lifelong appreciation for nonfiction, classic stories, and biographies. There is a DK Reader to interest every child at every level, from preschool to grade 4.
Big Macs & Burgundy: Wine Pairings for the Real World
by Vanessa Price Adam LaukhufThe national bestseller that turns you into “an expert at pairing wine with just about anything, from pizza and Lucky Charms to pad thai and Popeye’s” (Maxim).Featured on Today and CBS This MorningNamed one of the best books of the year by Food & Wine, Saveur, and Town & CountrySancerre and Cheetos go together like milk and cookies. The science behind this unholy alliance is as elemental as acid, fat, salt, and minerals. Wine pro Vanessa Price explains how to create your own pairings while proving you don’t necessarily need fancy foods to unlock the joys of wine. Building upon the outsize success of her weekly column in Grub Street, Price offers delightfully bold wine and food pairings alongside hilarious tales from her own unlikely journey as a Kentucky girl making it in the Big Apple and in the wine business. Using language everyone can understand, she reveals why each dynamic duo is a match made in heaven, serving up memorable takeaways that will help you navigate any wine list or local bottle shop. Charmingly illustrated and bubbling with personality, Big Macs & Burgundy will open your mind to the entirely fun and entirely accessible wine pairings out there waiting to be discovered—and make you do a few spit-takes along the way.“The book explores all different kinds of combinations, including breakfast pairings like avocado toast and Rueda Verdejo, pairings for entertaining like shrimp cocktail & Valdeorras Godello, and even some pairings with popular Trader Joe’s items.” —Food & Wine“A smart, useful guide to drinking the world’s great wine, whether you’re pairing it with foie gras or Fritos.” —Town & Country
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
by Elizabeth Gilbert"A must read for anyone hoping to live a creative life... I dare you not to be inspired to be brave, to be free, and to be curious." --PopSugarFrom the worldwide bestselling author of Eat Pray Love: the path to the vibrant, fulfilling life you've dreamed of. Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert's books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration. She asks us to embrace our curiosity and let go of needless suffering. She shows us how to tackle what we most love, and how to face down what we most fear. She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the "strange jewels" that are hidden within each of us. Whether we are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in our work, embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion, Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.From the Hardcover edition.
Big Mal: The High Life and Hard Times of Malcolm Allison, Football Legend
by David TossellMalcolm Allison is one of the most controversial figures of the last half-century of English football. Leader of the famed 'West Ham Academy', his playing career was cut short by the loss of a lung to tuberculosis. Disillusioned, he became a professional gambler before acknowledging that football was his calling. After humble beginnings as a coach, he began a celebrated partnership with Joe Mercer, turning Manchester City into one of the most stylish teams English football has produced. Along with the trophies came the birth of Big Mal, the larger-than-life personality who helped revolutionise televised football. He became instantly recognisable for his cigar and Fedora, and equally notorious for a string of affairs with beautiful women. As the dark side of Big Mal took over, he was banned for life from the touchlines, became embroiled in a series of boardroom battles and spent time in police cells and rehabilitation clinics fighting the effects of alcoholism. Yet despite the often-destructive effect of his Big Mal persona, Malcolm Allison retains his status as one of the most incisive minds to have graced the game. This book tells both sides of the story, tracing the life and times of one of the most charismatic characters in British sport.
Big Mall
by Kate BlackA phenomenology of the mall: If the mall makes us feel bad, why do we keep going back? In a world poisoned by capitalism, is shopping what makes life worth living?Kate Black grew up in West Edmonton Mall – a mall on steroids, notorious for its indoor waterpark, deadly roller coaster, and controversial dolphin shows. But everyone has a favourite mall, or a mall that is their own personal memory palace. It's a place people love to hate and hate to love – a site of pleasure and pain, of death and violence, of (sub)urban legend. Blending a history of shopping with a story of coming of age in North America's largest and strangest mall, Big Mall investigates how these structures have become the ultimate symbol of late-capitalist dread – and, surprisingly, a subversive site of hope."Speaking as a child of PacSun and Hot Topic myself, Big Mall is like a madeleine dipped in Orange Julius. Like a mall, the book itself has a lot of everything, a sublime mix of memoir, history, and cultural criticism. Kate Black is a learned Virgil in the consumerist Inferno, always avoiding the obvious and leading us to surprising connections—oil, suicide, Reddit, squatters, dolphins. Whether malls fill you with nostalgia or horror, this book will change your relationship to the world we've constructed around us.” – Tony Tulathimutte, author of Private Citizens"Before there was Instagram, there was the mall. But what happens when a seasonless, tacky, fantasyland is all you knew growing up? How does one embrace a genuinely fake experience? Or to be more precise, a fake but genuine experience? Kate Black’s Big Mall is a smart, sentimental, and perspective-shifting look at the outsized role that big malls play in modern life. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, one thing’s for sure: after reading this book, you’ll never look at a mall in the same way again." – Ziya Tong, Science broadcaster & author of The Reality Bubble
Big Man
by Clarence Clemons Don ReoBig Man tells the fascinating story of Clarence Clemons, the larger-than-life saxophone player of the E Street Band. Clarence and his longtime friend, writer/producer Don Reo, take you on a thrilling ride from Clarence's childhood to the present, from beat-up vans to private jets, from boardwalk bars to stadiums and concert halls all over the world. It's a fitting account of a life lived to the full by a man who threw himself wholeheartedly into his music right up until his tragic death in 2011.The book is filled with never-before-told stories about Clarence's life, his friendship with Bruce Springsteen, and his encounters with some of the most famous people in the world. Along the way, Clarence and Don spin their own fictional "legends" that add to the already-mystical lore of E Street.An absolute must for all Springsteen fans, Big Man reveals the heart and soul of the man who brought so much music and love to so many people for so long.
Big Man on Campus: A University President Speaks Out on Higher Education
by Stephen Joel TrachtenbergAn eye-opening and at times controversial insider's look at the current state of higher education in America, from one of the nation's most distinguished and down-to-earth university presidents. At a time when daily news headlines scream of competitive college enrollments, skyrocketing tuition, campus violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and other campus scandals, the former president of The George Washington University tells it like it really is. Educated at Columbia, Yale, and Harvard universities, with a membership in Phi Beta Kappa, more than fifteen honorary doctorates, four books, and numerous published articles, Stephen Joel Trachtenberg is one of the leading voices in American higher education. Here he brings his thirty years of experience, wisdom, and wit to reveal what goes on behind the scenes in the difficult and rewarding challenge of running a university. Using wonderful anecdotes from his own life, Trachtenberg explains with compassion and his trademark humor the insight he has gained from the halls of learning. For parents who will write big checks to send their sons and daughters to college, for businesspeople of all kinds looking for leadership lessons, and for anyone invested in America's system of higher education, this book is a major work about the importance of sustaining our nation's natural brain trust.
Big Man: Real Life & Tall Tales
by Clarence Clemons Don ReoFor the first time ever comes the inside story of Clarence "Big Man" Clemons--his life before, during and beyond the E-Street Band, including unbelievable, never-before-told adventures with Bruce Springsteen, the band, and an incredible cast of other famous characters recounted by himself and his best friend, television writer/ producer Don Reo. Here are just a few things you'll get from reading it: The truth behind the final hours of making Born To Run; The real story of how the E-Street Band got its name; What happened when Clarence and Ringo Starr were sitting in a hotel room and Clarence got the call that Bruce was breaking up the band; How Bruce and Clarence met that dark, stormy night at the Student Prince; The E-Street band's show at Sing-Sing prison where all of their equipment blows out right as they take the stage; The secret that Robert De Niro told Clarence and Bruce they had to keep for 25 years. But that's merely a glimpse. This is not your average rock book. It is something creative, something unique, something new. It is the story of E-Street. It is the story of stories. It is the story of the Big Man.
Big Meadows and Lake Almanor
by Marilyn Morris QuadrioFew among the thousands of vacationers who recreate on and around Lake Almanor each summer realize that beneath its waters lie the remains of a vanished way of life. This tiny Atlantis, Big Meadows, was a microcosm of the cultural forces and conflicts that racked the West in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Rich in natural resources, the Meadows sustained the lives of the native Maidu and the hundreds of encroaching whites who followed on the heels of the Lassen Trail immigrant parties. White men came seeking to exploit those precious resources for gold mining, stock raising, dairying, tourism, timber, and later, hydroelectric power. In the tumult of cultural and industrial change, a pastoral way of life was lost and a native culture vanquished.
Big Med: Megaproviders and the High Cost of Health Care in America
by David Dranove Lawton R. BurnsThere is little debate that health care in the United States is in need of reform. But where should those improvements begin? With insurers? Drug makers? The doctors themselves? In Big Med, David Dranove and Lawton Robert Burns argue that we’re overlooking the most ubiquitous cause of our costly and underperforming system: megaproviders, the expansive health care organizations that have become the face of American medicine. Your local hospital is likely part of one. Your doctors, too. And the megaproviders are bad news for your health and your wallet. Drawing on decades of combined expertise in health care consolidation, Dranove and Burns trace Big Med’s emergence in the 1990s, followed by its swift rise amid false promises of scale economies and organizational collaboration. In the decades since, megaproviders have gobbled up market share and turned independent physicians into salaried employees of big bureaucracies, while delivering on none of their early promises. For patients this means higher costs and lesser care. Meanwhile, physicians report increasingly low morale, making it all but impossible for most systems to implement meaningful reforms. In Big Med, Dranove and Burns combine their respective skills in economics and management to provide a nuanced explanation of how the provision of health care has been corrupted and submerged under consolidation. They offer practical recommendations for improving competition policies that would reform megaproviders to actually achieve the efficiencies and quality improvements they have long promised. This is an essential read for understanding the current state of the health care system in America—and the steps urgently needed to create an environment of better care for all of us.
Big Men, Little People: The Leaders Who Defined Africa
by Alec Russell<p>The Sixties were a heady time for Africans. All over the continent colonial flags were being lowered and Africans looked forward to freedom and a glittering future. But for most of the continent the last forty years have been a shattering experience. Since independence Africans have been terribly betrayed by the Europeans, the superpowers, and tragically, by their own leaders. <p>Can a new generation of leaders turn the tide? Will they learn from their predecessors' mistakes and fuel a new African renaissance? Or is Africa doomed to further decades of turmoil? <p>In this witty and informative book, Alec Russell answers these questions by telling the stories of his encounters with Africa's Big Men. Each one represents a theme which has shaped the continent: Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, the "King of Kleptocracy" whose staggering corruption crippled Zaire; Jonas Savimbi, the life-long guerrilla and symbol of the Cold War's destructive legacy on the continent; the quixotic Hastings Banda, the ultimate product of colonialism; and, of course, Nelson Mandela, symbol of reconciliation and hope for an entire continent. <p>By any measure, this has been a terrible century for Africa. However Russell detects signs of hope in the fledgling human rights troupe he encounters deep in the steamy heart of the Congolese jungle and in the group of journalists keeping Moi's tottering regime in Kenya on its toes. <p>Big Men, Little People is a vividly written portrait of a continent, which avoids the usual stereotypes and dire prophecies and entertains from start to finish.</p>