The rapid growth of organized crime in Mexico and the government’s response to it have driven an unprecedented rise in violence and impelled major structural economic changes, including the recent passage of energy reform. Los Zetas Inc. asserts that these phenomena are a direct and intended result of the emergence of the brutal Zetas criminal organization in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas. Going beyond previous studies of the group as a drug trafficking organization, Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera builds a convincing case that the Zetas and similar organizations effectively constitute transnational corporations with business practices that include the trafficking of crude oil, natural gas, and gasoline; migrant and weapons smuggling; kidnapping for ransom; and video and music piracy. Combining vivid interview commentary with in-depth analysis of organized crime as a transnational and corporate phenomenon, Los Zetas Inc. proposes a new theoretical framework for understanding the emerging face, new structure, and economic implications of organized crime in Mexico. Correa-Cabrera delineates the Zetas establishment, structure, and forms of operation, along with the reactions to this new model of criminality by the state and other lawbreaking, foreign, and corporate actors. Since the Zetas share some characteristics with legal transnational businesses that operate in the energy and private security industries, she also compares this criminal corporation with ExxonMobil, Halliburton, and Blackwater (renamed “Academi” and now a Constellis company). Asserting that the elevated level of violence between the Zetas and the Mexican state resembles a civil war, Correa-Cabrera identifies the beneficiaries of this war, including arms-producing companies, the international banking system, the US border economy, the US border security/military-industrial complex, and corporate capital, especially international oil and gas companies.

Los avances conseguidos en el Concilio Vaticano II parecen ser definitivamente aparcados, sobre todo, desde la llegada al papado del cardenal Ratzinger e iniciada por el Papa Juan Pablo II. La reciente elección de un nuevo pontífice, de nacionalidad argentina, el Papa Francisco, está por ver por dónde se inclinará. En el presente texto se aborda el tema de la relación de la Iglesia y el Carlismo en la España contemporánea. El Carlismo nunca se sintió favorecido por la Iglesia, institución que ha cruzado el Rubicón desde la época de Juan XXIII, en la que se afirmó el pluralismo político y se negó el apoyo al proyecto democristiano de Joaquín Ruíz Giménez. Todo ello ha hecho crecer lo que ya se creía enterrado: el anticlericalismo. Un ejemplo de la respuesta carlista fue la advertencia de Don Javier al cardenal Tarancón, presidente entonces de la Conferencia Episcopal Española. En el texto se relatan desde los enormes privilegios que goza la Iglesia actual hasta su enfrentamiento a todo planteamiento que significara un avance o renovación ideológica de la sociedad española. Posiblemente este trabajo escandalizará a algunos y, sin embargo, a otros les parecerá que nos hemos quedado cortos. El asunto tiene su lógica, ya que lo contrario sería creer que la actual sociedad española pasa de todo. Pero está demostrado que no es así.

Even 700 years after the suppression of the Order of the Temple and the execution of the last grandmaster, Jacques de Molay, there is no shortage of publications on this influential military order. Yet unlike other medieval institutions the Templars are subject to speculative fiction and popular myth which threaten to swamp the fruits of scholarly endeavour. Fortunately, recent years have produced a thriving academic scholarship which is challenging these myths. More and more sources are currently being edited, particularly those for the trial of the Templars (1307–1312). Others are still awaiting indepth study, among them, surprisingly, the greater part of the charters that cover more than 150 years of the Order’s history. The papers in this volume step into this gap and critically evaluate new directions in Templar studies on the basis of as-yet unedited source material. Open issues and desiderata regarding the sources are discussed and from a range of inspiring results a new status quaestionis is proposed that will not only provide a better understanding of the Order’s archaeological, economical, religious, administrative and military history, but also set new points of departure for the editing of charters and administrative documents. The papers here are grouped into six sections, focusing on the headquarters of the Order, its charters, manpower and finance, religious life and finally the suppression and the Order’s afterlife.