The Greatest Spanish monarch, St. Fernando III, King of Castile and Leon, was born in the year 1199 - exactly 100 years after the death of his illustrious ancestor, El Cid. In him would be combined the soul of a knight dedicated entirely to God, the irresistible power of the Cid, and, due to his royal heritage, the authority to marshal the might of an entire kingdom against the enemies of Christ. Personally leading his armies into battle, he took back more territory from Islam than any other king in history. First cousin to St. Louis IX of France, Fernando died a holy death in 1252. His incorrupt body can still be seen in the Cathedral of Seville and his feast day, May 30th, is traditionally a holy day of obligation in Spain.

In 1935, after the death of dictator General Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela consolidated its position as the world's major oil exporter and began to establish what today is South America's longest-lasting democratic regime. Endowed with the power of state oil wealth, successive presidents appeared as transcendent figures who could magically transform Venezuela into a modern nation. During the 1974-78 oil boom, dazzling development projects promised finally to effect this transformation. Yet now the state must struggle to appease its foreign creditors, counter a declining economy, and contain a discontented citizenry. In critical dialogue with contemporary social theory, Fernando Coronil examines key transformations in Venezuela's polity, culture, and economy, recasting theories of development and highlighting the relevance of these processes for other postcolonial nations. The result is a timely and compelling historical ethnography of political power at the cutting edge of interdisciplinary reflections on modernity and the state.

Explores the role of the nobility and analogous traditional elites in contemporary society.

In 1989 three Muslim schoolgirls from a Paris suburb refused to remove their Islamic headscarves in class. The headscarf crisis signaled an Islamic revival among the children of North African immigrants; it also ignited an ongoing debate about the place of Muslims within the secular nation-state. Based on ten years of ethnographic research, The Republic Unsettled alternates between an analysis of Muslim French religiosity and the contradictions of French secularism that this emergent religiosity precipitated. Mayanthi L. Fernando explores how Muslim French draw on both Islamic and secular-republican traditions to create novel modes of ethical and political life, reconfiguring those traditions to imagine a new future for France. She also examines how the political discourses, institutions, and laws that constitute French secularism regulate Islam, transforming the Islamic tradition and what it means to be Muslim. Fernando traces how long-standing tensions within secularism and republican citizenship are displaced onto France's Muslims, who, as a result, are rendered illegitimate as political citizens and moral subjects. She argues, ultimately, that the Muslim question is as much about secularism as it is about Islam.

"The Last Three Days of Fernando Pessoa finds the poet on his deathbed, where he is visited by his heteronyms, the poets he invented, whose poetry and voices invented him. Antonio Tabucchi, scholar and Italian translator of Pessoa's work, here pronounces a farewell to a man who was several of the greatest writers of the twentieth century."--BOOK JACKET.

The year of the COVID pandemic was a time like no other in modern history. A historical pandemic, a racial reckoning, a tense and bitterly divided political election, an insurrection at the capital, and the Texas record freeze created a year that will be long remembered. Preachers were charged with making some sense of what was happening and at the same time giving hope that the community would make it through this time together. Through a year of homilies based on the Catholic readings of Sundays and Feast days, Father David Garcia connects the stories of this historic year to the light of Scripture. The homilies weave human experiences with Hispanic culture and traditions as well as moral lessons and Catholic spirituality. Pandemic Preaching helps inspire all who have been through this difficult time with powerful stories and sound theological reflection. At the same time these writings challenge us to learn the lessons of this unique and difficult year for ourselves.

This biography presents a remarkable vision of Spanish society at the beginning of the 13th century by exploring the life of Berenguela of Castile (c. 1179-1246), a queen who dominated public life for over forty years.