Muddied Waters

Colombia’s western Coffee Region is renowned for the whiteness of its inhabitants, who are often described as respectable pioneer families who domesticated a wild frontier and planted coffee on the forested slopes of the Andes. Some local inhabitants, however, tell a different tale—of white migrants rapaciously usurping the lands of indigenous and black communities. Muddied Waters examines both of these legends, showing how local communities, settlers, speculators, and politicians struggled over jurisdictional boundaries and the privatization of communal lands in the creation of the Coffee Region. Viewing the emergence of this region from the perspective of Riosucio, a multiracial town within it, Nancy P. Appelbaum reveals the contingent and contested nature of Colombia’s racialized regional identities. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century Colombian elite intellectuals, Appelbaum contends, mapped race onto their mountainous topography by defining regions in racial terms. They privileged certain places and inhabitants as white and modern and denigrated others as racially inferior and backward. Inhabitants of Riosucio, however, elaborated local narratives about their mestizo and indigenous identities that contested the white mystique of the Coffee Region. Ongoing violent conflicts over land and politics, Appelbaum finds, continue to shape local debates over history and identity. Drawing on archival and published sources complemented by oral history, Muddied Waters vividly illustrates the relationship of mythmaking and racial inequality to regionalism and frontier colonization in postcolonial Latin America.

It is the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, with all of the most famous bandits either killed, disappeared, or captured and executed by authorities. A retiring viceroy, on his way home and carrying with him decades worth of riches, runs into one of the few crews of brigands left roaming the open waters. His misfortune is not only the haul of their lives, but a prize for the ages. The pirates attempt to disappear with the treasure, not realizing that this viceroy will stop at nothing to regain what has been stolen from him. Muddied Waters is a tale of ambitious and uncompromising men who carry with them not only the fruits of their plunder, but the weight of its true cost.

This book examines the history of human interaction with forest and marine ecosystems in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Rainforests falling to snarling chainsaws, and factory trawlers emptying the life out of tropical seas, are nowadays among the most familiar images of Southeast Asia. Yet the present excessive levels of logging and fishing have emerged only within the last generation. Until a few decades ago it was common for marine and forest-related economic activities in Southeast Asia to have limited, and in the long run rather stable, effects on the environment. Did this relative stability simply reflect lower population densities, less well developed markets, and less efficient extraction technologies? Or was it the result of successful resource management techniques and institutions? If so, why have these since failed or been abandoned? Seventeen contributions by an international selection of expert authors cover topics ranging from the collection of rattan, beeswax and forest resins in the seventeenth century to the management of modern marine nature reserves. Muddied waters is essential reading for anyone interested in the environmental history of Southeast Asia, whether in connection with other aspects of this particular region, or in relation to patterns of environmental change and resource management in other parts of the world.

Historically, operations and studies regarding maritime security focus on individual threats (e.g., piracy, terrorism, narcotics, etc.) and individual measures to target them (e.g., counter-piracy, counter-terrorism, counter-narcotics). This book explores, for the first time, an overall strategy for maritime security, integrating these issues into a single framework. Tallis argues that as maritime security threats rise in sophistication, it will be increasingly appealing to apply military resources to counter them. Military tactics, however, may not be the ideal mechanisms for addressing challenges that are often closer to crime than they are to war. Leveraging the sea services' capabilities, without overly militarizing maritime security, is a complicated problem set that requires a more strategic and partner-oriented approach to the challenge. At stake, in Tallis' estimation, is the war for tomorrow's most important communities, their human security, and the muddy waters on which they and the global system rely.

The scandalous true crime story about the Papin Sisters, as told by one of comics' most stylized talents. Christine Papin, an overworked live-in maid, is reunited with her younger sister, Lea, who has also been hired by the wealthy Lancelin family. They make the estate's beds, scrub the floors, and spy on the domestic strife that routinely occurs within its walls. What starts as petty theft by the maids ― who are flashing back to their tumultuous time in a convent ― shortly turns into something more nefarious. Madame Lancelin’s increasingly unhinged abuse ignites the sisters' toxic upbringing and social class exploitation and explodes into a ghastly double murder, an event that shocked and fascinated 1930s France and beyond. Maids has high bravura and high intrigue, all drawn in Skelly’s highly stylized manner, which combines the best of pop art, manga, and Eurocomics.

The mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II is not only a tale of injustice; it is a moving story of faith. In this pathbreaking account, Duncan Ryūken Williams reveals how, even as they were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, Japanese-American Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation's history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.--

How the Bible Defines: Election It is not uncommon to find the word election defined in a Bible dictionary as "chosen by God for salvation" or something similar. Many dictionaries and lexicons include an alternate definition: "choice, select, best in its class." A close look at the New Testament will reveal a number of passages where this word occurs without a clear indication of the intended definition. In these passages, how are we to determine which was the intended meaning? The Greek Old Testament is an often-overlooked resource that provides rich scriptural contexts from which to derive the meaning of key biblical words. You are cordially invited to embark on an exploration of Old Testament stories and passages that contain "election." Along the way, you will see what the inspired writers meant when they used the word in certain stories, such as that of Korah's rebellion and of the remnant in Isaiah's prophecy. By the end, you just might find that one of the above definitions has no basis within the pages of scripture.