With contributions from leading experts, Culture and National Security in the Americas examines the most influential historical, geographic, cultural, political, economic, and military considerations shaping national security policies throughout the Americas. In this volume, contributors explore the actors and institutions responsible for perpetuating security cultures over time and the changes and continuities in contemporary national security policies.

Cannabis - A Comprehensive GuideThe use of cannabis for medicinal purposes can be traced back to antiquity, but it is only recently that it has garnered attention as one of the most exciting medical-pharmaceutical topics. In hardly any other area of pharmacotherapy has knowledge of late developed with comparable dynamism. Experts from different fields are continuously working on new scientific evidence for the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids in order t...

Globale Migrationsbewegungen, Sicherheitsbedrohungen und soziale Umwälzungen haben in den vergangenen Jahren den Aufstieg populistischer rechter Parteien und Bewegungen in Europa und im transatlantischen Raum befördert. Religiöse Akteure stellen potenzielle Allianzpartner für diese Gruppierungen dar. Denn religiöse Interpretationen, etwa die Bezugnahme auf christliche Traditionen, bieten ein Reservoir für die Konstruktion vermeintlich natürlicher Geschlechterordnungen, exkludierender Vorst...

The Brazil-United States relations represent a huge potential, but in recent decades have suffered from lack of communication and understanding between academics and policymakers from both countries. This book goes a long way towards demystifyingthis relationship. Covering from the final decades of the 19th century until the period of the Rousseff and Obama administrations,the work apprehends the political, economic and diplomatic contexts that define the present day.

In their international bestseller Empire, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri presented a grand unified vision of a world in which the old forms of imperialism are no longer effective. But what of Empire in an age of “American empire”? Has fear become our permanent condition and democracy an impossible dream? Such pessimism is profoundly mistaken, the authors argue. Empire, by interconnecting more areas of life, is actually creating the possibility for a new kind of democracy,...

Between 2010 and 2025, most of the countries of Latin America will commemorate two centuries of independence, and Latin Americans have much to celebrate at this milestone. Most countries have enjoyed periods of sustained growth, while inequality is showing modest declines and the middle class is expanding. Dictatorships have been left behind, and all major political actors seem to have accepted the democratic process and the rule of law. Latin Americans have entered the digital world, rout...

We are living through a period of dramatic political change – Brexit, the election of Trump, the rise of extreme right movements in Europe and elsewhere, the resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia and a concerted assault on the liberal values and ideals associated with cosmopolitanism and globalization. Suddenly we find ourselves in a world that few would have imagined possible just a few years ago, a world that seems to many to be a move backwards. How can we make sense of these dramati...

Evo Morales rode to power on a wave of popular mobilizations against the neoliberal policies enforced by his predecessors. Yet many of his economic policies bare striking resemblance to the status quo he was meant to displace. Based in part on dozens of interviews with leading Bolivian activists, Jeff Webber examines the contradictions of Morales' first term in office.

“No one has written with more penetrating skepticism about the history of human rights.”—Adam Kirsch, Wall Street Journal“Moyn breaks new ground in examining the relationship between human rights and economic fairness.”—George SorosThe age of human rights has been kindest to the rich. While state violations of political rights have garnered unprecedented attention in recent decades, a commitment to material equality h...

Grassroots social movements played a major role electing left-leaning governments throughout Latin America. Subsequent relations between these states and "the streets" remain troubled. Contextualizing recent developments historically, Dangl untangles the contradictions of state-focused social change, providing lessons for activists everywhere.

Rooted in thousands of pages of Access to Information documents and dozens of interviews carried out throughout Latin America, Blood of Extraction examines the increasing presence of Canadian mining companies in Latin America and the environmental and human rights abuses that have occurred as a result. By following the money, Gordon and Webber illustrate the myriad ways Canadian-based multinational corporations, backed by the Canadian state, have developed extensive economic inter...

We are living in an age of crisis—or an age in which everything is labeled a crisis. Financial, debt, and refugee “crises” have erupted. The word has also been applied to the Arab Spring and its aftermath, Brexit, the 2016 U.S. election, and many other international events. Yet the term has contradictory political and strategic meanings for those challenging power structures and those seeking to preserve them. For critics of the status quo, can the rhetoric of crisis be used to foment urge...