AVAILABLE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN eBOOK! General Simon Bolivar, “the Liberator” of five South American countries, takes a last melancholy journey down the Magdalena River, revisiting cities along its shores, and reliving the triumphs, passions, and betrayals of his life. Infinitely charming, prodigiously successful in love, war and politics, he still dances with such enthusiasm and skill that his witnesses cannot believe he is ill. Aflame with memories of the power that he commanded and the dream of continental unity that eluded him, he is a moving exemplar of how much can be won—and lost—in a life.

This work is an introduction to who's who and what is really happening in Columbia. In one volume, it brings together the best material published on the war, the economy, social impact and prospects of peace in Columbia.

This book’s leading goal is to explain why some states in the Americas have been markedly more effective than others at forming stable democratic regimes. The six states analyzed are the United States, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The study identifies the critical challenges each state encountered at different stages of its state-creation and regime- formation processes, from the colonial period to the present. In its concluding chapter, the study presents a series of time-related hypotheses designed to capture the different evolutionary processes and explain variances in success.

Rural movements have recently emerged to become some of the most important social forces in opposition to neoliberalism. From Brazil and Mexico to Zimbabwe and the Philippines, rural movements of diverse political character, but all sharing the same social basis of dispossessed peasants and unemployed workers, have used land occupations and other tactics to confront the neoliberal state. This volume brings together for the first time across three continents - Africa, Latin America and Asia - an intellectually consistent set of original investigations into this new generation of rural social movements. These country studies seek to identify their social composition, strategies, tactics, and ideologies; to assess their relations with other social actors, including political parties, urban social movements, and international aid agencies and other institutions; and to examine their most common tactic, the land occupation, its origins, pace and patterns, as well as the responses of governments and landowners. At a more fundamental level, this volume explores the ways in which two decades of neoliberal policy - including new land tenure arrangements intended to hasten the commodification of land, and new land uses linked to global markets -- have undermined the social reproduction of the rural labour force and created the conditions for popular resistance. The volume demonstrates the longer-term potential impact of these movements. In economic terms, they raise the possibility of tackling immiseration by means of the redistribution of land and the reorganisation of production on a more efficient and socially responsible basis. And in political terms, breaking the power of landowners and transnational capital with interests in land could ultimately open the way to an alternative pattern of capital accumulation and development.

- What impact does gender difference make to political decision-making? - Will the political empowerment of women contribute to a more peaceful world? The role of gender has been increasingly recognized as central to the study and analysis of the traditionally male domains of war and international relations. This book explores the key role of gender in peace research, conflict resolution and international politics. Rather than simply ′add gender′ the aim is to transcend different disciplinary boundaries and conceptual approaches to provide a more integrated basis for future study. To this end it uniquely combines theoretical chapters alongside empirical case studies to demonstrate the importance of a gender perspective to both theory and practice in conflict resolution and peace research. The theoretical chapters explore the gender relationship and engage with the many stereotypical dichotomies like femininity and peace and masculinity and war. The case study chapters (drawing on examples from South America, South Asia and Europe, including former Yugoslavia) move beyond theoretical critique to focus on issues like sexual violence in war, the role of women in military groups and peacekeeping operations and the impact of a ′critical mass′ of women in political decision-making. Gender, Peace and Conflict will provide an invaluable survey and new insights to a central area of contemporary research. It will be essential reading for academics, students and practitioners across peace studies, conflict resolution and international politics.

First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.