Participatory Development Practice provides a theoretical and applied base for rethinking development practice that is deeply influenced by a ‘community’ development tradition having its roots in participation and dialogue, yet is broader than that. The book makes the link from the intra-personal to the community and beyond, into the inter-organizational and international domains now required of twenty-first century development work.

The book is framed conceptually as implicate method (starting with positioning self), micro (developing constructive relationships), mezzo (forming small participatory groups), macro (structuring participatory work within formal organizations) and meta (working with both local to global and global to local issues).

Kelly and Westoby draw on diverse traditions of thought and practice, including the written works of author-activists such as Gandhi, Freire, Fanon, and the unwritten oral traditions of female workers in Asia, and First Peoples. The result is a true and tested methodology using frameworks of good ideas born from practice wisdom, that have come from research and reflection on 70 years of combined experience.

Participatory Development Practice helps experienced practitioners, as well as scholars and students of international development, community development and social work, to reflect critically on the concepts and assumptions guiding their work. It is also aimed at corporate actors within community relations departments of major industry who increasingly interact with the public.

In this latest collection of adventures, P. J. O’Rourke casts his mordant eye on America’s recent foreign policy forays. He first travels to Kosovo where he meets KLA veterans, Albanian refugees and peacekeepers, and confronts the paradox of ‘the war that war-haters love to love’. He visits Egypt, Israel and Kuwait, where he witnesses citizens enjoying their newfound freedoms – namely, to shop, to eat and to sit around a lot. Following 11 September, O’Rourke examines the far-reaching changes in the US, from the absurd hassles of airport security to the dangers of anthrax. In Iraq, he witnesses both the beginning and the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom and takes a tour of a presidential palace, concluding that the war was justified for at least one reason: criminal interior decorating.

Peace Kills is an eye-opening look at a world much changed since O’Rourke wrote his bestselling Give War A Chance – a book in which he presciently declared that the most troubling aspect of war is sometimes peace itself.

Peppa loves playing with her friend Zoe Zebra. They like dressng up together.