Troubled Neighbors

At one time the US and Latin America defined themselves in common as new and American, in contrast to the old, European order, and they enjoyed a period of friendship and cooperation based on that sustaining sense of commonality. With the advent of the Cold War, however, hemispheric solidarity and alliance faded fast, as the US became preoccupied with other regions of the world it deemed of deeper strategic significance. The United States and Latin America now largely define each other as negative reference points, instead of as neighbors and allies. In Troubled Neighbors, Henry Raymont-journalist for four decades, author, lecturer, teacher, and consultant-presents a journalist's observations on the pendulum swings in US-Latin American relations over the past half-century. The book is organized chronologically, with a chapter devoted to each of the administrations from FDR to Bill Clinton and an epilogue covering the first term of the George W. Bush administration. Straightforward organization: The book is chronologically organized, with a chapter devoted in turn to each administration from FDR to George W. Bush. Experienced author, an expert in the field._

This book offers an analysis of the dynamics of Israeli-European relations and discusses significant developments in that relationship from the late 1950s through to the present day. The emphasis is placed on five broad themes that address different dimensions of the relationship: 1) Israeli-E.U. relations and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process; 2) Israeli-E.U. relations in a multilateral context; 3) the bilateral nature of Israeli-E.U. relations; 4) Israeli (mis)perceptions of the E.U.; 5) the future of Israeli-E.U. relations.

What does the New Testament have to say about the attitude of Christians and the church toward those who exercise political authority? Few topics have caused more controversy in the history of the church than the relationship between church and state-from the first century to the present. Pilgrim offers an analysis of the various attitudes of New Testament writers on this difficult subject, ranging from submission to overt resistance by the church. The volume also excursus on "Church and State in Luke-Acts" and a concluding chapter on hermeneutics.

Today, hundreds of thousands of people, desperate to escape war, violence and poverty, are crossing the Mediterranean to seek refuge in Europe. Our response from our protected European standpoint, argues Slavoj Zizek, offers two versions of ideological blackmail: either we open our doors as widely as possible; or we try to pull up the drawbridge. Both solutions are bad, states Zizek. They merely prolong the problem, rather than tackling it. The refugee crisis also presents an opportunity, a unique chance for Europe to redefine itself: but, if we are to do so, we have to start raising unpleasant and difficult questions. We must also acknowledge that large migrations are our future: only then can we commit to a carefully prepared process of change, one founded not on a community that see the excluded as a threat, but one that takes as its basis the shared substance of our social being. The only way, in other words, to get to the heart of one of the greatest issues confronting Europe today is to insist on the global solidarity of the exploited and oppressed. Maybe such solidarity is a utopia. But, warns Zizek, if we don't engage in it, then we are really lost. And we will deserve to be lost.

This book examines the ways in which recent U.S. Latina literature challenges popular definitions of nationhood and national identity. It explores a group of feminist texts that are representative of the U.S. Latina literary boom of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, when an emerging group of writers gained prominence in mainstream and academic circles. Through close readings of select contemporary Mexican American, Puerto Rican, and Cuban American works, Maya Socolovsky argues that these narratives are “remapping” the United States so that it is fully integrated within a larger, hemispheric Americas. Looking at such concerns as nation, place, trauma, and storytelling, writers Denise Chavez, Sandra Cisneros, Esmeralda Santiago, Ana Castillo, Himilce Novas, and Judith Ortiz Cofer challenge popular views of Latino cultural “unbelonging” and make strong cases for the legitimate presence of Latinas/os within the United States. In this way, they also counter much of today’s anti-immigration rhetoric. Imagining the U.S. as part of a broader "Americas," these writings trouble imperialist notions of nationhood, in which political borders and a long history of intervention and colonization beyond those borders have come to shape and determine the dominant culture's writing and the defining of all Latinos as "other" to the nation.

Neighbors and Ne’er-Do-Wells takes you back to the days of Jesus, to a time of faith in the midst of uncertainty, of unconditional love in the face of bigotry. Join the audience as Jesus tells the parables of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son for the first time. You’ll discover that then, as now, people of faith wrestle with what it means to put love into practice. Neighbors and Ne’er-Do-Wells addresses such contemporary questions as: • Why are parables interpreted in so many ways? • How inclusive should I be in my dealings with others? • How far should I go in helping a neighbor? • How can religion get in the way of God’s compassion? • How can I confront my own self-righteousness? • What does my personal relationship with Christ have to do with anyone else? • Is it possible to drift beyond God’s love? • What advice is there for a parent whose adult child has strayed from the Christian faith? Neighbors and Ne’er-Do-Wells includes discussion questions with each chapter, making it ideal for individual and group studies.

In the mid-seventeenth century, Wilno (Vilnius), the second capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was home to Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Ruthenians, Jews, and Tatars, who worshiped in Catholic, Uniate, Orthodox, Calvinist, and Lutheran churches, one synagogue, and one mosque. Visitors regularly commented on the relatively peaceful coexistence of this bewildering array of peoples, languages, and faiths. In Kith, Kin, and Neighbors, David Frick shows how Wilno's inhabitants navigated and negotiated these differences in their public and private lives. This remarkable book opens with a walk through the streets of Wilno, offering a look over the royal quartermaster's shoulder as he made his survey of the city's intramural houses in preparation for King Wladyslaw IV's visit in 1636. These surveys (Lustrations) provide concise descriptions of each house within the city walls that, in concert with court and church records, enable Frick to accurately discern Wilno's neighborhoods and human networks, ascertain the extent to which such networks were bounded confessionally and culturally, determine when citizens crossed these boundaries, and conclude which kinds of cross-confessional constellations were more likely than others. These maps provide the backdrops against which the dramas of Wilno lives played out: birth, baptism, education, marriage, separation or divorce, guild membership, poor relief, and death and funeral practices. Perhaps the most complete reconstruction ever written of life in an early modern European city, Kith, Kin, and Neighbors sets a new standard for urban history and for work on the religious and communal life of Eastern Europe.