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2014 has the potential to go down as a crucial year in modern world history. A resurgent and bellicose Russia took over Crimea and fueled a civil war in Eastern Ukraine. Post-Saddam Iraq, in many respects a creature of the United States because of the war that began in 2003, lost a third of its territory to an army of hyper-violent millennialists. The peace process in Israel seemed to completely collapse.

Why we need to think more like economists to successfully combat terrorism If we are to correctly assess the root causes of terrorism and successfully address the threat, we must think more like economists do. This is the argument of Alan Krueger's What Makes a Terrorist, a book that explains why our tactics in the fight against terrorism must be based on more than anecdote, intuition, and speculation. Many popular ideas about terrorists and why they seek to harm us are fueled by falsehoods, misinformation, and fearmongering.

NOAM CHOMSKY is widely regarded as the most influential thinker of our time, but never before has he devoted a major book to one topic, income inequality: "During the Great Depression, things were much worse than they are today, but there was an expectation that things were going to get better. There was a real sense of hopefulness. There isn't today. Inequality is really unprecedented. In terms of total inequality, it's like the worst periods in American history.

A timely, inspiring, and even revolutionary look at who wields the greatest power in America--everyday people who take a chance and stand up for what they believe in--but also offers advice on what you can do to help. The sister-brother team of Amy and David Goodman traveled the country to detail the ways in which grassroots activists have taken politics out of the hands of politicians. As the Bush administration has waged war abroad and at home, it has catalyzed a vast groundswell of political action.

Globe and Mail feature columnist Doug Saunders argues we need 100 million Canadians if we're to outgrow our colonial past and build a safer, greener, more prosperous future. It would shock most Canadians to learn that before 1967, more people fled this country than immigrated to it. That was no accident. Long after we ceased to be an actual colony, our economic policies and social tendencies kept us poorly connected to the outside world, attracting few of the people and building few of the institutions needed to sustain us.

A belief in individual self-determination powered the development of universal human rights and inspired social movements from anti-slavery to socialism and feminism. At the same time, every attempt to embed individualism in systems of education and employment has eventually led to increased social inequality. Across the globe individualism has been transformed from a revolutionary force into an explanation for increasingly unequal societies where dissent is largely silent. This book explores the possibility of rediscovering the original, transformative potential of individualism.

Through interviews and eyewitness accounts, declassified security documents and underground pamphlets, Kurzman documents the overwhelming sense of confusion that gripped pre-revolutionary Iran, and that characterizes major protest movements. His book provides a striking picture of the chaotic conditions under which Iranians acted, participating in protest only when they expected others to do so. Indeed, only when large numbers of Iranians began to think the unthinkable, in the words of the U.S. ambassador, did revolutionary expectations become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Noam Chomsky and George W. Bush seldom agree, but they both argued that 9/11 stood alone in American history. Although the use of airplanes as weapons of mass destruction was new, Mark Anderson maintains that the response to the attack was not: it was, in fact, as old as the Republic itself.

A political insider takes a revealing look at the public and private life of BC's controversial premier. In the blood-sport arena of provincial politics, BC's enigmatic premier, Christy Clark, has defied the pundits to win both party leadership and an upset election victory against all odds. Made deputy premier in 2001 shortly after her first foray into public life, she shunned Gordon Campbell's cabinet solidarity to return to private life in 2004. After a bold run at becoming Vancouver's mayor, she launched a successful media career as a CKNW talk show host.