This book is a response to a desire expressed by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (the future Pope Benedict XVI) who called for a diachronic study of the results of the historical-critical method. The study of the last 150-200 years of biblical research shows how the claim to scientific rigor made in many works, that is, the claim to have obtained results comparable in their certainty to those of the natural sciences, is clearly unrealistic.This is a comprehensive analysis of the...

Paco Ignacio Taibo II is one of the most popular and influential authors in Latin and South America. His endlessly inventive, highly-political detective novels, featuring the idiosyncratic private eye Hector Belascoaran Shayne, are set in the teeming landscape of Mexico City, a combustible mix of poverty, tragic class warfare, the anarchic and absurd. For Shayne it is a world that can bring tears one moment and blood the next.An Easy Thing is the first nov...

This timely volume offers a comprehensive and rigorous overview of the role of communication in the construction of hate speech and polarization in the online and offline arena.Delving into the meanings, implications, contexts and effects of extreme speech and gated communities in the media landscape, the chapters analyse misleading metaphors and rhetoric via focused case studies to understand how we can overcome the risks and threats stemming from the past decade’s defining commun...

Latorre offers an essential reflection on the technological singularity. The new social contract is not an option: it is an urgency. We are about to renegotiate one of humanity's oldest agreements. For more than two centuries, the social contract has governed our coexistence, defining what we relinquish as individuals in exchange for protection, rights, and collective order. But for the first time in history, humans share the world with an entity capable of learning, deciding, and acting a...

Set amidst the political turbulence and social unrest of contemporary Mexico City, An Easy Thing introduces English-speaking readers to Taibo's human and world-weary protagonist, independent detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne. In this debut outing, our hero, who, incidentally, possesses an insatiable appetite for Coca Cola and cigarettes, tackles three cases simultaneously: a killing in a corrupt factory; the deadly threats against a former porn starlet's teenage daughter; and, strangely,...

A Cuban immigrant's inspiring journey from hardship to musical success, overcoming language barriers and family separation, showcases the power of perseverance and dedication in the pursuit of dreams, resonating with music lovers and cross-cultural readers alike. In The Path I Chose, the author recounts his life and career in Cuba and his journey into the United States, where he arrived during the 1980 Mariel Boatlift. Armed with little more than a toothbrush and a dream, and confronted wi...

No city occupies as many paradoxical positions in the popular imagination as Los Angeles. It is the new frontier and the end of the trail; it is American Eden and Babylon by the Pacific; it is by turns celebrated and condemned for its diversity; it is the city of perpetual renewal and the city of imminent apocalypse. This collection reveals LA in all its contradictions by documenting a literary tradition as kaleidoscopic and cacophonous as the city itself. The writings explored by Los Ange...

Bitcoin, Ethereum, Uniswap or Tether are not just digitals currencies. Bitcoin is pure law. Since the emergence of the blockchain, it is possible to regulate ourselves in a decentralized, private way, with a law that is digital, self-regulating and self-executing.Likewise, states, elites and official organizations repeat over and over again the same message from various platforms: Bitcoin is unregulated, it is only good for dirty business, it is merely speculative, etc. While we li...

Owen Wister's "Western Classics Collection" emerges as a seminal anthology encapsulating the rich tapestry of American western literature. Spanning multiple narratives, including "The Virginian" and "The Promised Land," Wister adeptly intertwines themes of rugged individualism, morality, and the American frontier's complexities. His distinctive literary style'—marked by vivid descriptions, colloquial dialogue, and a keen sense of place'—offers readers a compelling insight into early twenti...

A mixed infantry formation made up of about 3,000 men armed with pikes, swords and handguns, the innovative and influential tercio or 'Spanish square' was the basic combat unit of the armies of Spain throughout much of the 16th and 17th centuries.Arguably the first permanent tactical formation seen in Europe since the Roman cohort, the tercio was the forerunner of modern formations such as the battalion and regiment. The variety of different weapons fielded in the ...

“In your country,” Ignacio Martín-Baró remarked to a North American colleague, “it’s publish or perish. In ours, it’s publish and perish.” In November 1989 a Salvadoran death squad extinguished his eloquent voice, raised so often and so passionately against oppression in his adopted country. A Spanish-born Jesuit priest trained in psychology at the University of Chicago, Martín-Baró devoted much of his career to making psychology speak to the community as well as to the individual...

The emergence and consolidation of the so-called modern state was one of the most remarkable features of the early modern period and went hand in hand with the development of fiscal and financial systems.This book explores the case of the Spanish Habsburgs who ruled over a vast collection of states and principalities in the burgeoning Spanish empire. In this edited volume, a cast of expert economic historians each explores the fiscal and financial systems created in the different te...