Kirjahaku

A WIRED 2020 Book of the YearObject Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. "Nothing's bulletproof," the salesman said. "The thing's only bullet resistant." The New York Times journalist Kenneth R. Rosen had just purchased his first bulletproof vest and was headed off on assignment. He was travelling into Mosul, Iraq, when he realized that the idea of a bulletproof vest is more effective than the vest itself. From its very inception, poly-paraphenylene terephthalamide, or Kevlar, was meant for tires. Its humble roots and mundane applications are often lost, as it is now synonymous with body armor, war zones, and domestic terrorism. What Rosen learned through intimate use of his vest was that it acts as a metaphor for all the precautions we take toward digital, physical, and social security. Bulletproof Vest is at once an introspective journey into the properties and precisions of a bulletproof vest on a molecular level and on the world stage. It's also an ode to living precariously, an open letter that defends the notion that life is worth the risk.A portion of the author’s proceeds will be donated to RISC, a nonprofit that provides emergency medical training to freelance conflict journalists. For more information, go to www.risctraining.org.Object Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The Atlantic.

A New York Times Editor’s Choice One of Newsweek’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2021 Named a Bustle Best Book of 2021 An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails. In the middle of the night, they are vanished. Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control—suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage—are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these “troubled teens” fear it’s their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever. Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled, Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry. Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

A New York Times Editor’s ChoiceOne of Newsweek’s Most Highly Anticipated Books of 2021Named a Bustle Best Book of 2021An award-winning journalist’s breathtaking mosaic of the tough-love industry and the young adults it inevitably fails.In the middle of the night, they are vanished.Each year thousands of young adults deemed out of control—suffering from depression, addiction, anxiety, and rage—are carted off against their will to remote wilderness programs and treatment facilities across the country. Desperate parents of these “troubled teens” fear it’s their only option. The private, largely unregulated behavioral boot camps break their children down, a damnation the children suffer forever.Acclaimed journalist Kenneth R. Rosen knows firsthand the brutal emotional, physical, and sexual abuse carried out at these programs. He lived it. In Troubled, Rosen unspools the stories of four graduates on their own scarred journeys through the programs into adulthood. Based on three years of reporting and more than one hundred interviews with other clients, their parents, psychologists, and health-care professionals, Troubled combines harrowing storytelling with investigative journalism to expose the disturbing truth about the massively profitable, sometimes fatal, grossly unchecked redirection industry.Not without hope, Troubled ultimately delivers an emotional, crucial tapestry of coming of age, neglect, exploitation, trauma, and fraught redemption.

A gripping blend of travelogue and frontline reporting that reveals how climate change, military ambition, and economic opportunity are transforming the Arctic into the epicenter of a new cold war, where a struggle for dominance between the planet's great powers heralds the next global conflict. Russian spies. Nuclear submarines. Sabotaged pipelines. Undersea communications severed in the dark of night. The fastest-warming place on earth--where apartment buildings, hospitals, and homes crumble daily as permafrost melts and villages get washed away by rising seas--the Arctic stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As climate change thaws the northern latitudes, opening once ice-bound shipping lanes and access to natural resources, the world's military powers are rushing to stake their claims in this increasingly strategic region. We've entered a new cold war--and every day it grows hotter. In Polar War, Kenneth R. Rosen takes readers on an extraordinary journey across the changing face of the far north. Through intimate portraits of scientists, soldiers, and Indigenous community leaders representing the interests of twenty-one countries across four continents, he witnesses firsthand how rising temperatures and growing tensions are reshaping life above and below the Arctic Circle. He finds himself on the trail of Navy SEALs training for arctic warfare, embarks on Coast Guard patrols monitoring Russian incursions, participates in close-quarter-combat training aboard foreign icebreakers in the Arctic sea ice, and visits remote research stations where international cooperation is giving way to espionage and the search for long-frozen biological weapons. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and three years of reporting from the frontlines of climate change and great power competition, Rosen blends incisive analysis with the vivid immediacy of a travelogue. His deeply researched and personal accounts capture the diverse landscapes, people, and conflicted interests that define this complex northern region. The result is both an elegy for a vanishing landscape and an urgent warning about how the race for Arctic dominance could spark the next global conflict.

'A wake up call to the West' JONATHAN BEALE 'An essential contribution to understanding what is really at stake at the top of the world' KEIR GILES Russian spies. Sabotaged pipelines. Undersea communications severed in the dead of night. Tensions are building at the top of the world and the Arctic - the fastest-warming place on Earth - stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. As thawing ice opens up new trade routes, untapped natural resources and long-frozen biological weapons, award-winning commentator Kenneth R. Rosen draws on first-hand reportage and testimony to document the race to control this strategically crucial territory. Can America, which since the 1990s has lagged behind on infrastructure, reimpose its might against the superior technology and strategic engagement of Russia and China? Above the Arctic Circle, the world's superpowers stand on the brink of a new cold war - and every day it grows hotter. Timely and incisive, Polar War is an indispensable account of the interests, landscapes and people that define the world's most extreme frontier.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'This is a proper piece of journalism. It's a fascinating book. I read it from start to finish in a single sitting' Alastair Campbell, THE REST IS POLITICS 'Anyone... wanting to understand the context of the US president's Greenland landgrab should buy POLAR WAR' THE TIMES Russian spies. Sabotaged pipelines. Troop movements and threats to 'take Greenland'. Tensions are building at the top of the world. The Arctic stands at the crossroads of geopolitical ambition and environmental catastrophe. President Trump's assertions on Greenland reveal a regional context where fast-moving climate change is opening up new trade routes, untapped natural resources and long-frozen biological weapons. Award-winning commentator Kenneth R. Rosen draws on first-hand reportage and testimony to document the race to control this strategically crucial territory. Can America, which since the 1990s has lagged behind on infrastructure, really reimpose its might against the superior technology and strategic engagement of Russia and China? Above the Arctic Circle, the world's superpowers stand on the brink of a new cold war - and every day it grows hotter. Timely and incisive, Polar War is an essential account of the interests, landscapes and people at the world's most extreme frontier. 'This reporting is indispensable' FINANCIAL TIMES 'A wake-up call to the West' JONATHAN BEALE, BBC Defence Correspondent