A lively, accessible introduction to the asymmetrical relationship between the United States and Mexico, one of the most formative international relationships in geopolitics today.

The border between the US and Mexico is the world's longest between a wealthy industrialized nation and a part of the Global South. The economy, society, culture, and politics of the two nations have become inextricably linked.

As the United States continues to assert its considerable geopolitical power, this book reminds us that this trend runs deep in the country's history, starting with its closest neighbors. Buchenau explores US territorial expansion, the Mexican Revolution of 1910, disputes over agricultural and mineral wealth, and the migration of Mexican laborers. Despite that massive power imbalance, Buchenau shows us that Mexico's influence on the United States is just as significant as the inverse.

The crisis of religion today stems not simply from the fact that certain tenets of faith have lost their validity for us, or that we no longer believe in God. The crisis of religion has a deeper source: it is rooted in a crisis of attention, a crisis of seeing and hearing. It is not God that is dead, declares Byung-Chul Han, it is the human to whom God revealed himself that is dead.

For many people today, attention has been displaced by perception, and perception, in our age of information overload, has become voracious - it has become 'binge watching'. It is flattened with junk information and communication, with sonic and visual waste. We 'eat' but we no longer 'look'. Our voracious perception has no need of attention; it is controlled by addiction and dopamine and it devours whatever is presented to it. And a soul that only eats without looking loses its contemplative capacity.

Only the soul that fasts can start to contemplate deeply, to observe things without wishing to appropriate or absorb them. Religion presupposes an attention to the things that elude availability, elude consumption. If we looked attentively, with pure attention undisturbed by the frenzied distractions of our digital culture, we would encounter God.

Through a dialogue with the thought of Simone Weil, Byung-Chul Han shows us that beyond the immanence of production and consumption, beyond the immanence of information and communication, there is a higher reality that can lead us out of a life that has lost all meaning and grant us an exhilarating fullness of being.

In their Pulitzer Prize-winning books, Doris Kearns Goodwin and James M. McPherson argue that Abraham Lincoln became a master strategist during his presidency. But even before he became president, Lincoln was adept at recognizing and exploiting strategic opportunities. In How Lincoln Won, Darin DeWitt and Thomas Schwartz show that Lincoln's strategy of division and conquest, cleverly designed and artfully executed over two years, not only secured his victory in America's most consequential presidential election but also helped establish the Republican Party as the nation's second major political party.

By 1858, Lincoln had grasped three essential truths. First, the Republican Party's moral opposition to the expansion of slavery commanded only minority support among the electorate. Second, in every presidential election since 1844, one party had won because the other had split on the slavery issue. Third, the Republican Party could win the presidency-without compromising its principled opposition to slavery's expansion-if it turned this recurring pattern into a deliberate strategy, that of division and conquest on the overriding issue of slavery.

Lincoln employed this strategy during the 1858 debates for the U.S. Senate seat from Illinois. There, Lincoln repeatedly trapped his opponent into taking new and moderate positions on slavery that fractured the Democratic Party. As a direct result of those concessions, rival Democratic tickets were fielded-first in Illinois in 1858 and then nationwide in 1860. Besides dividing votes, this split decimated the Democratic Party's campaign machinery, making it exceedingly difficult for either faction to mobilize supporters or persuade marginal voters. Absent this division, Illinois Republicans would not have swept statewide offices in 1858, nor would Lincoln have won the presidency in 1860.

Lincoln prevailed not only because he devised a clever strategy and executed it skillfully but also because history had positioned him and his allies to profit from it. In the end, his achievement reveals a novel model of transformative political change-one driven by strategic party division rather than by efforts of persuasion, moderation, or changing the issue agenda.

The Early Years of Old Main, 1885-1915 details the archaeological discoveries revealed during the 2012-14 renovation of Old Main, which, due to its age and historic records, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Thanks to detailed excavation work by a team of archaeologists, this work documents eight historic features of the building, ranging from equipment pads to drainage systems. Drawing on archaeological monitoring, artifact analysis, archival records, architectural drawings, and historic photographs, the narrative reconstructs how Old Main functioned during the university's first decades and how its physical spaces supported early scientific instruction in mining, metallurgy, and agriculture.

More than a technical report, this volume offers a tangible glimpse into the material foundations of higher education in territorial and early statehood Arizona. Madsen's careful documentation preserves knowledge of features that could not be saved during renovation and places them in the broader context of Old Main's architectural evolution and its central role on campus. The result is an important resource for historians, archaeologists, preservationists, and anyone who values the University of Arizona's heritage-demonstrating that even the most familiar buildings can still hold untold stories beneath their floors and landscapes.

This book is dedicated to the four major types of return-to-work personnel movements: returning after time spent at another company, after long-term sick leave, after parental leave, and returning to an operational role following a period in a leadership position. These four reboarding scenarios are currently underrepresented in the professional literature. However, all four are essential for life-phase-oriented HR management and effective retention management. The book serves as a valuable practical guide for HR professionals and leaders, enabling them to implement these strategically important measures in a solution-focused way within their organizations.

Since 2015, China has actively promoted "third-party market cooperation" as a new model of international economic engagement. This approach brings together China, advanced economies, and beneficiary countries to jointly develop infrastructure and construction projects, moving beyond traditional bilateral cooperation framework. Official narratives portray tripartite cooperation as a "triple-win" arrangement that combines China's manufacturing capacity, partner countries' advanced technologies, and the development needs of beneficiary countries. While such cooperation promises risk-sharing, resource complementarity, and enhanced project quality, it also introduces new challenges, including higher transaction costs, divergent governance practices, and complex negotiations among multiple actors.

Addressing the central question of why stakeholders choose tripartite cooperation and how three-party collaboration shapes project outcomes, the book makes both theoretical and practical contributions. It integrates transaction cost theory, international relations theory, foreign direct investment theory, and infrastructure natural monopoly theory to advance a novel concept of "semi-internalisation." The analysis provides policymakers, practitioners, and scholars with a framework to understand partner selection, interest alignment, and the evolving dynamics of one of China's significant yet understudied innovations in global economic cooperation

Examines feminist strategies of persistence and adaptation in Central America from the 1980s to 2020.

A Praxis of Persistence establishes persistence as a framework for understanding methods of feminist activism in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Blending literary and ethnographic approaches, Kenna Neitch analyzes texts produced by activist movements from the 1980s to 2020-from collective testimonio to institutional publications (encuentros) to social media-and connects them to the movements' cultural impact and organizing practices, such as generative conflict, horizontal cross-border networks, and what she terms strategic adaptability. What these texts and practices have in common, Neitch argues, is feminist persistence-a balance of action, preservation, and creation adaptable across contexts. A Praxis of Persistence provides one of the first scholarly accounts of #MeToo in Central America while remaining grounded in the region's lineage of activism against sexual violence. Through the framework of persistence, this book highlights the vitality of Central American women's activism and offers a repertoire of methods for reckoning with the realities of uneven progress in feminist struggle.

This book examines the justification for taxation and identifies the ethical tax issues. It also provides a blueprint for tax reform and advises on tax policy. At one end of the spectrum, any tax legislation is legitimate if the country has a democratic system of government because the peoples' representatives have voted for it. At the other end of the spectrum, no tax can be justified on philosophical grounds because all governments are bands of thieves. A middle position is that taxation can generally be justified, but that some taxes are better than others, either from a utilitarian or deontological perspective. If a tax that is transparent and visible is better than a tax that is obscure or hidden, why are so many taxes obscure or hidden? There is a general belief that everyone must pay their "fair share" of taxes, but the term "fair share" is conveniently undefinable. Is a graduated income tax morally justifiable, or would some other approach be better? Could/should the income tax be replaced with a consumption tax, or should a consumption tax be viewed as a supplement to an income tax? Should the purpose of taxation be to raise revenue, or should the tax system also be used to alter behavior by taxing "bad" things like alcohol and tobacco products or subsidizing green energy initiatives? This book explores some of these questions.

Strategic financial decisions such as mergers and acquisitions are among the most consequential actions firms undertake. Yet, the role of individual executives in shaping these decisions remains insufficiently understood. This book explores how characteristics and personality traits of top management team members are reflected in corporate behavior.

Grounded in Upper Echelons Theory, the book comprises three empirical studies that examine how top executive characteristics shape mergers and acquisitions and corporate communication, with a particular focus on CFO power and CEO narcissism.

By integrating behavioral theory with empirical corporate finance, this book contributes to the growing field of behavioral corporate finance and offers novel insights into the individual-level mechanisms underlying strategic financial decision-making.

• ausfuehrliche Einfuehrung in das Recht der Untersuchungsausschuesse
• Synopse zu den bislang auf Bundesebene eingesetzten Untersuchungsausschuessen und der zum Untersuchungsausschussrecht ergangenen Rechtsprechung (BVerfG/BGH/Landesverfassungsgerichte/sonstige Gerichte)
• Beruecksichtigung der landesrechtlichen Vorschriften

This book offers a clear headed roadmap for anyone concerned about the growing presence of generative artificial intelligence in schools and universities. Written by Stephen J. Aguilar, an education scholar and director of the USC Center for Generative AI & Society, the book blends rigorous research with vivid real world stories-from early classroom TV experiments to today's AI driven tutoring platforms.

Rather than portraying AI as a miracle cure or a looming threat, Aguilar frames it as a sophisticated tool whose impact depends on three interacting elements: the users, the technology, and the surrounding context. Drawing on philosophy, design theory, and decades of educational technology research, he explains how AI can enhance learning, personalize instruction, and free teachers to engage in deeper human interaction-while also exposing pitfalls such as bias, academic integrity challenges, and widening equity gaps.

Practical lists, case studies, and actionable recommendations equip educators, administrators, policymakers, and even curious parents with the knowledge to "authenticate" human intelligence, make informed decisions, and harness AI responsibly. This balanced, accessible guide equips readers to navigate today's AI infused classrooms and shape a future where technology amplifies-not replaces-human learning.

This book analyzes how Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and China achieved rapid economic development through public policies and technological innovation in East Asia. The work examines the fundamental role of the state and industrial strategies in the process of technological catching-up in these economies. Throughout its chapters, the author explores the historical foundations and economic policies of each country under global geopolitical pressures. The book begins with two chapters addressing the economic rise of East Asia and the main heterodox developmental literatures, followed by four chapters discussing these specific experiences (Japanese, Taiwanese, South Korean, and Chinese), and finally, a comparative conclusion. Finally, the analysis focuses on the role of state-owned enterprises, government planning, and technical bureaucracies in sustaining growth. Written in clear and accessible language, this book is essential for researchers, students, and anyone interested in understanding the role of the state and the lessons of Asian development for the contemporary global landscape.

This open access book is self-standing as the only substantive anthology of writings centered on John Dupre's work. Dupre is internationally regarded as one of the most prominent living philosophers of science. His work has had a profound impact on philosophy and biology over the last half century. From fundamental questions about classification to metaphysical debates about the nature of organisms and life, Dupre's writings have changed how scholars look at the life sciences and the natural world. But it is not just his published output that has re-shaped the field. It is also his philosophical methodology, characterised by a naturalistic and interdisciplinary approach. In part this approach was shaped by Dupre's interactions with natural and social scientists, an aspect of his approach to philosophy that is also reflected in his role as a co-founder and then Director of the Egenis Centre for the Study of Life Sciences. This book, edited and authored by many of the world's leading philosophers of the life sciences provides a key text on the interdisciplinary study of the life sciences with a particular emphasis on philosophy. It is of interest to philosophers of science and forms a methodological reference point for students in this field.

This book considers the apparent invisibility of lesbianism throughout the literary history of the Hispanic Caribbean (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic), specifically during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (1970s-2010s). The book looks at the way in which certain circumstances simultaneously hide, regulate, and allow the expression of what are considered sexual "deviancies." It observes the methods through which alternative female sexualities have been previously silenced or represented only at the symbolic level and explores the reasons why lesbian characters have only recently found public and open representation within the literature of the islands. Therefore, the book aims to present a history of female characters who love women, thus instituting a lesbian literary canon in the Hispanic Caribbean.