This book deals with Vitoria, Charles V and Erasmus. Vitoria’s ideas had a major influence on Charles V and his European and American policy. In turn, Erasmus’ humanism was decisive in the formation of a new international order intellectually discussed by Vitoria and put into practice by the Emperor. Shedding new light on the influence of Francisco de Vitoria and Erasmus on Charles V’s imperial policy, the book’s goal is to explore the impact of Vitoria’s thought with regard to the history of, and contemporary issues in, international law, while also comparing his thinking with that of the well-known humanist Erasmus and assessing their respective influences on the imperial policy of Charles V.

"We are living through the endtimes of the civilizing mission. The ineffectual International Criminal Court and its disastrous first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, along with the failure in Syria of the Responsibility to Protect are the latest pieces of evidence not of transient misfortunes but of fatal structural defects in international humanism. Whether it is the increase in deadly attacks on aid workers, the torture and 'disappearing' of al-Qaeda suspects by American officials, the flouting of international law by states such as Sri Lanka and Sudan, or the shambles of the Khmer Rouge tribunal in Phnom Penh, the prospect of one world under secular human rights law is receding. What seemed like a dawn is in fact a sunset. The foundations of universal liberal norms and global governance are crumbling."—from The Endtimes of Human Rights In a book that is at once passionate and provocative, Stephen Hopgood argues, against the conventional wisdom, that the idea of universal human rights has become not only ill adapted to current realities but also overambitious and unresponsive. A shift in the global balance of power away from the United States further undermines the foundations on which the global human rights regime is based. American decline exposes the contradictions, hypocrisies and weaknesses behind the attempt to enforce this regime around the world and opens the way for resurgent religious and sovereign actors to challenge human rights. Historically, Hopgood writes, universal humanist norms inspired a sense of secular religiosity among the new middle classes of a rapidly modernizing Europe. Human rights were the product of a particular worldview (Western European and Christian) and specific historical moments (humanitarianism in the nineteenth century, the aftermath of the Holocaust). They were an antidote to a troubling contradiction—the coexistence of a belief in progress with horrifying violence and growing inequality. The obsolescence of that founding purpose in the modern globalized world has, Hopgood asserts, transformed the institutions created to perform it, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and recently the International Criminal Court, into self-perpetuating structures of intermittent power and authority that mask their lack of democratic legitimacy and systematic ineffectiveness. At their best, they provide relief in extraordinary situations of great distress; otherwise they are serving up a mixture of false hope and unaccountability sustained by “human rights” as a global brand. The Endtimes of Human Rights is sure to be controversial. Hopgood makes a plea for a new understanding of where hope lies for human rights, a plea that mourns the promise but rejects the reality of universalism in favor of a less predictable encounter with the diverse realities of today’s multipolar world.

Challenging beliefs about intellectual culture, Makdisi reaffirms the links between Western and Arabic thought and shows that although scholasticism and humanism have long been considered to be exclusive to the Western world, they have their roots in the medieval Islamic world.

The first comprehensive, synoptic study of humanistic ideas of Empire in the period c.1250-1402, Humanism and Empire offers a radical new interpretation of fourteenth-century political thought, and raises wide-ranging questions about the foundations of modern constitutional ideas and the origins of the concept of liberty.

Global imperial designs, which have been in place since conquest by western powers, did not suddenly evaporate after decolonization. Global coloniality as a leitmotif of the empire became the order of the day, with its invisible technologies of subjugation continuing to reproduce Africa’s subaltern position, a position characterized by perceived deficits ranging from a lack of civilization, a lack of writing and a lack of history to a lack of development, a lack of human rights and a lack of democracy. The author’s sharply critical perspective reveals how this epistemology of alterity has kept Africa ensnared within colonial matrices of power, serving to justify external interventions in African affairs, including the interference with liberation struggles and disregard for African positions. Evaluating the quality of African responses and available options, the author opens up a new horizon that includes cognitive justice and new humanism.

ONE OF THE FIRST EDUCATIONAL BOOKS TO CHALLENGE THE BUSH REGIME’s WAR ON TERROR, ITS EDUCATIONAL POLICY, ITS FOREIGN POLICY AND ITS ASSAULT ON THE POOR Written by two leading international exponents of critical pedagogy, this book is a pioneering attempt to create a Marxist humanist and feminist pedagogy for the new century. Critical pedagogy is discussed as an important revolutionary act in bringing about a socialist future. In their conclusion, McLaren and Jaramillo cite an observation made by Arundhati Roy (2004) who insists that "there is no discussion taking place in the world today that is more crucial than the debate about strategies of resistance" (p. 195). McLaren and Jaramillo have clearly contributed to such a conversation with Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire and their work must be understood as a relevant component in that ongoing dialogue. Moreover, they have been courageous enough to remind us (following Roy) that if we believe democracy should be something more than the "free world’s whore, " something more than "Empire’s euphemism for neoliberal capitalism" (Roy, 2004, p. 54, 56), we can no longer afford to remain indifferent to the horror and savagery unleashed by capitalism’s barbaric machinations. . . . We believe that McLaren and Jaramillo have introduced in PPAE an important and highly productive framework that can help lay the groundwork for expanding human relationships with nature, or, for beginning to ask questions such as who or what should be considered democratic participants. Valerie Scatamburlo-D'Annibale, Ghada Chehade, Richard Kahn, Clayton Pierce and Sheila L. MacrineJCEPS: Vol. 5 No. 2 (November 2007) Perhaps this book is more than just a symbolic warning, since what has transpired during the past decade, perhaps longer, is a reversal in true social justice, often accompanied by blatant denial to the children of the lesser gods of everything that makes up human dignity. Ben Tanosborn http: //www. mwcnews. net/content/view/1696 Critical pedagogy reveals the social relations and institutional structures that mediate how educators approach the concept of curriculum, design, evaluation, and classroom instruction, in order to help students locate their agency so that they can act more coherently as individuals growing up in social conditions not of their own making. As McLaren and Jaramillo see it, a critical pedagogy against capitalism, empire, and imperialism is a pedagogy that works in the interests of working people, empowerment, and democracy. It is a pedagogy for socialism. Andrew Michael Lee, Socialism and Democracy, 2008

Explores the fluctuating relationship between human rights and humanitarianism and the changing nature of the politics and practices of humanity.