American Nations

This volume brings together an impressive collection of important works covering nearly every aspect of early Native American history, from contact and exchange to diplomacy, religion, warfare, and disease.

An illuminating history of North America's eleven rival cultural regions that explodes the red state-blue state myth. North America was settled by people with distinct religious, political, and ethnographic characteristics, creating regional cultures that have been at odds with one another ever since. Subsequent immigrants didn't confront or assimilate into an “American” or “Canadian” culture, but rather into one of the eleven distinct regional ones that spread over the continent each staking out mutually exclusive territory. In American Nations, Colin Woodard leads us on a journey through the history of our fractured continent, and the rivalries and alliances between its component nations, which conform to neither state nor international boundaries. He illustrates and explains why “American” values vary sharply from one region to another. Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) reveals how intranational differences have played a pivotal role at every point in the continent's history, from the American Revolution and the Civil War to the tumultuous sixties and the "blue county/red county" maps of recent presidential elections. American Nations is a revolutionary and revelatory take on America's myriad identities and how the conflicts between them have shaped our past and are molding our future.

Reproduction of the original: The American Nations by C.S. Rafinesque

This book offers an up-to-date analysis of the foreign policies of Latin American Nations and its international positioning in world politics, evaluating the impact of changes in the global community, on the hemisphere, and on individual states.

This pioneering work brings the pre-Columbian and colonial history of Latin America home: rather than starting out in Spain and following Columbus and the conquistadores as they “discover” New World peoples, The Formation of Latin American Nations begins with the Mesoamerican and South American nations as they were before the advent of European colonialism—and only then moves on to the sixteenth-century Spanish arrival and its impact. To form a clearer picture of precolonial Latin America, Thomas Ward reads between the lines in the “Chronicles of the Indies,” filling in the blanks with information derived from archaeology, anthropology, genetics, and common-sense logic. Although he finds fascinating points of comparison among the K’iche’ Maya in Central America, the polities (señoríos) of Colombia, and the Chimú of the northern Peruvian coast, Ward focuses on two of the best-known peoples: the Nahua (Aztec) of Central Mexico and the Inka of the Andes. His study privileges indigenous-identified authors such as Diego Muñoz Camargo, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxóchitl, Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, and Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala while it also consults Spanish chroniclers like Hernán Cortés, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Pedro Cieza de León, and Bartolomé de las Casas. The nation-forming processes that Ward theorizes feature two forms of cultural appropriation: the horizontal, in which nations appropriate people and customs from adjacent cultures, and the vertical, in which nations dig into their own past to fortify their concept of exceptionality. In defining these processes, Ward eschews the most common measure, race, instead opting for the Nahua altepetl, the Inka panaka, and the K’iche’ amaq’. His work thus approaches the nation both as the indigenous people conceptualized it and with terminology that would have been familiar to them before and after contact with the Spanish. The result is a truly decolonial account of the formation and organization of Latin American nations, one that puts the indigenous perspective at its center.

The question of development is a major topic in courses across the social sciences and history, particularly those focused on Latin America. Many scholars and instructors have tried to pinpoint, explain, and define the problem of underdevelopment in the region. With new ideas have come new strategies that by and large have failed to explain or reduce income disparity and relieve poverty in the region. Why Latin American Nations Fail brings together leading Latin Americanists from several disciplines to address the topic of how and why contemporary development strategies have failed to curb rampant poverty and underdevelopment throughout the region. Given the dramatic political turns in contemporary Latin America, this book offers a much-needed explanation and analysis of the factors that are key to making sense of development today.

Provides a cultural chronicle of the Native Americans of the Great Basin and the Southwest, with descriptions of each tribe and entries on history, religion, government, and daily life.

A comprehensive, illustrated encyclopedia which provides information on over 150 native tribes of North America, including prehistoric peoples.

In recent years many Latin American countries have liberalized their trade and investment regimes, opening their markets to free international trade. At the same time, regional economic integration has boomed. This book is the first systematic analysis in any language of these globally significant developments, and the first comprehensive legal study of dispute settlement relating to foreign direct investment and trade in the region. Undertaken by an expert in the field, this study describes the current institutional framework of Latin American trade and investment law as well as specialized legal issues in the region's various economic blocs. Among the many issues and topics raised the following may be mentioned: • questions of compliance and procedure in the context of today's international investment regime; • formalized dispute settlement mechanisms; • alternative dispute resolution channels, including dispute prevention practices; • legitimacy and transparency of the various dispute settlement mechanisms; • inclusion of social clauses in trade and investment agreements; and • avoidance of investment treaty liability. In order to offer a most accurate view of the effectiveness of the protection granted to foreign investors, special attention is given to relevant case law – completely covering the period 1985–2015 – as well as arbitral precedents before international bodies and in jurisdictions across the region. The book concludes with a critical examination of the future prospects of international economic law dispute settlement in the Americas, pinpointing current trends and unveiling future possible avenues for change. As an in-depth explication of how the rules and principles of international economic law are applied in Latin America, this book has no peers. For practitioners drafting business agreements with Latin American companies, or needing to ensure availability of appropriate remedies, this book's detailed insight into international litigation in the region, including case law illustrating the main topics, will prove to be of immeasurable value. Professionals in the arbitral community worldwide, as well as governments, dedicated research centres and officials in international organizations will welcome this book's model for comparative integration studies, systematic guidance on procedure and case law of domestic and international courts and arbitral tribunals, and extensive treatment of dispute settlement mechanisms in trade and investment agreements.