e-Books

MURDER ON THE MEKONG Jeff Howe with photographs by Gary Knight
Description from The Atavist: "At first, what happened on the Mekong River on October 5, 2011 seemed like a simple matter of rough frontier justice. A detachment of Thai military commandos reported that they had confronted a band of drug runners smuggling methamphetamines out of the Golden Triangle, the famously lawless borderlands between Burma, Laos, and Thailand. A gunfight ensued, the smugglers fled, and the commandos seized two barges and a haul of nearly a million pills. The story appeared to be over—until the bodies started washing ashore. There were thirteen of them, all Chinese merchant mariners—not hardened criminals. And they appeared to have been executed in cold blood. It was the largest massacre of Chinese civilians outside of China in over half a century, and Beijing quickly named the culprit: Naw Kham, a mysterious former guerrilla warrior turned river pirate who had haunted the Golden Triangle for years. Regarded as a feared terrorist by some and a local Robin Hood by others, Naw Kham was undoubtedly a skilled criminal—but was he a mass murderer? In Murder on the Mekong, Jeff Howe travels to the scene of the crime that transfixed East Asia and finds a tale of adventure, deception, and political intrigue." Buy the book on Atavist.

MELTDOWN: CHINA'S ENVIRONMENT CRISIS Sean Gallagher
How can you make sense of the enormous scale of China’s environmental problems? With a delightfully affable and knowledgeable personal guide. Through beautiful images and engaging storytelling, award-winning photojournalist Sean Gallagher takes readers on a tour through China to places both familiar – like big megalopolises – and hidden, such as ancient cities wiped off the map by desertification. Gallagher captures everything from the lifestyle of nomadic herders of Tibet and some of China’s iconic animals and landscapes before they may disappear forever. Four chapters—one each on wetlands, forests, desertification and the Tibetan Plateau—move you 10,000 miles through China, from delta to glacier. Multimedia features including maps and videos allow readers to can see China as Gallagher does – beautiful and endangered. Versions of this book can also be read on browsers and in the Creatavist app.

CHINA'S CONGO PLAN: WHAT THE ECONOMIC SUPERPOWER SEES IN THE WORLD'S POOREST NATION Jacob Kushner
What does China see in the world’s poorest nation? An opportunity for big business. Congo is known for poverty and conflict, but it is home to an enormous wealth of buried minerals. Already, tens of thousands of Chinese men and women have left their families behind to live in Africa to dig and process ore. Now, two Chinese state-owned companies are opening the biggest mine Congo has ever seen. In exchange, they’re spending billions of dollars to build new roads and modernize Congo's infrastructure. But will Chinese mines and roads help transform the country in a way Western aid and business has not? Or will Chinese businessmen and Congolese officials get rich while the people continue to live in poverty? Author Jacob Kushner takes us street-side to a grand, Chinese-constructed boulevard in Congo’s capital Kinshasa, to a mountain range where Congolese men, women and children dig for minerals with picks and shovels, and to a factory where Chinese immigrants melt aqua-blue rocks into molten copper lava. Two years after China overtook the United States as Africa’s largest trading partner, Kushner brings us inside the world of China’s rise in the continent. "China's Congo Plan" was awarded the Grand Prize in the Atavist Digital Storymakers Award for Graduate Longform, sponsored by the Pearson Foundation.

CANCER'S GLOBAL FOOTPRINT: THE ECONOMICS OF A DISEASE Joanne Silberner
Worldwide, more people die from cancer than from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria – combined. Yet until recently, cancer was almost ignored by the global health groups, charitable organizations and governments working to improve conditions in developing countries. Joanne Silberner looks at cancer issues in Uganda, India and Haiti. How do people experience cancer when they have no money for care, or when no care is available? What are the causes of cancer in the developing world? Are there inexpensive ways of detecting and treating cancer, and are these ways acceptable to the populations they’re aimed at? This project, by reporter Joanne Silberner, was supported by PRI’s The World® and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Versions of this book are also available on browsers and in the Creatavist app.

BETWEEN THE LINES: FACIALS TATTOOS AND THE CHAOUIA Yasmin Bendaas
Sepia-tinted photos from over 50 years ago show striking facial tattoos of women from indigenous populations in Algeria. But documentation of these women has faded like the aged photographs. In Algeria today the actual practice of facial tattooing is disappearing along with the older generation. One particular indigenous group losing this cultural marker is the Chaouia of the Aurès Mountains in northeastern Algeria. This project from Pulitzer Center student fellow Yasmin Bendaas captures incredible portraits and stories from Chaouia women and investigates the origins and disappearance of tattooing, especially with the advent of literacy and Islam's spread. Available on browsers and in the Creatavist app.

VOICES OF HAITI Lisa Armstrong, Kwame Dawes and Andre Lambertson
An itinerant preacher whose story reads like Job—except for an incandescent smile and a mountain-moving faith. A woman who remains resolutely joyful despite the HIV that has infected half her family. Young girls subjected to rape and forced into commercial sex. A couple whose triumph over the disease is a study in grace. “Voices of Haiti” tells these and other stories in a mesmerizing presentation that combines the poetry of Kwame Dawes, the prose of Lisa Armstrong, the photography of Andre Lambertson, and the music of Kevin Simmonds, from work that has been featured in The New York Times, PBS NewsHour, and USA Today. To purchase an enhanced version of the e-book exclusively for iPad, please visit http://bit.ly/voices-haiti. "Voices of Haiti" was recognized as one of the best e-books of the year by Pictures of the Year International Awards (POYi). The book was also awarded a Kirkus Star.

IN SEARCH OF HOME Greg Constantine, Stephanie Hanes
They are not refugees. Often they are living in their homes in a country they consider to be their own. Yet they are stateless—without the basic right to get an education, work in the legal economy, receive health benefits, get married, vote or own property. The cause is often rooted in religion or ethnicity but even when the stateless are not actively persecuted they remain the most vulnerable. Writer Stephanie Hanes and photographer Greg Constantine draw on field work from the past six years to present a nuanced look at the stateless peoples of Kenya, Burma, and the Dominican Republic. To purchase an enhanced version of this e-book made exclusively for iPad, please visit the iBookstore. "In Search of Home" is now also available on Amazon. Click here to purchase. *"In Search of Home" received an Honorable Mention from the National Press Photographers Association in the Tablet/Mobile Delivery category (2013).

BIRD OF CHAMAN, FLOWER OF THE KYBER: RIDING SHOTGUN FROM KARACHI TO KABUL IN A PAKISTANI TRUCK Matthieu Aikins
How do you supply an entire war in landlocked Afghanistan? Mostly by truck. In the fall of 2012, award-winning journalist Matthieu Aikins found out firsthand, riding in a rickety 1993 Nissan along the U.S. supply route, from the port city of Karachi into Pakistan’s scorching flatlands and lawless borderlands, then through the famed Khyber Pass and on toward the Afghan warzone. The result — the second in the Borderlands ebook series from Foreign Policy and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting — is both a harrowing account of life on Pakistan’s highways and an anatomy of the way foreign military intervention can transform a society. Click here to buy the Foreign Policy PDF edition. The Kindle version is available here.

WE NEVER KNEW EXACTLY WHERE: DISPATCHES FROM THE LOST COUNTRY OF MALI Peter Chilson
In 2012, Mali, once a poster child for African democracy, all but collapsed in a succession of coups and countercoups as Islamist rebels claimed control of the country's north, making it a new safe haven for al Qaeda. Prizewinning author Peter Chilson became one of the few Westerners to travel to the conflict zone in the following months to document conditions on the ground. What he found was a hazy dividing line between the uncertain, demoralized remnants of Mali's south and the new statelet formed in the north by jihadist fighters. Chilson's definitive account is the first in the new Borderlands series of e-books from Foreign Policy and the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Purchase the Foreign Policy PDF edition. The Kindle version is available here.

AFGHANISTAN BY DONKEY Anna Badkhen
Anna Badkhen’s extraordinary account of a year in northern Afghanistan is a travel guide to a conflict that has raged for the last decade, with little end in sight. Badkhen, a courageous war correspondent, decided to embed not with American troops but with the Afghan people. Throughout the year, she returns again and again to the country, traveling by foot, by taxi—and even by donkey—to the remote villages and hamlets of the Afghan north. It’s a place so remote that even the death of Osama bin Laden barely registers, where war is taken as a fact of life along with the rituals of mourning and celebration that Badkhen is allowed to witness. It is a bleak tale told by an expert storyteller. To purchase this e-book, visit http://bit.ly/afghanistan-donkey

DEEP WATER Dan Grossman
Dan Grossman is an award-winning science journalist, regular contributor to public radio, and multiple Pulitzer Center grantee. He has been reporting on science and the global effects of climate change for over a decade, with field reporting that has taken him from Mongolia and the Andes to Europe and Australia. Dan's new e-book, Deep Water, is a partnership with TED books and makes innovative use of the new TED book-app to bring us a multimedia adventure about the urgent research into one of the most critical issues of our time. To purchase this e-book, visit http://thedeepwaterbook.com