Now in a Spanish-language edition: the definitive biography of Senator Marco Rubio, the youngest Speaker of the Florida Statehouse and the biggest rising star in the Republican Party. Florida Senator Marco Rubio has been called the “crown prince” of the Tea Party movement and “the Michael Jordan of Republican politics.” Some might think that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but no one—not even his rivals in the Democratic Party—disagrees with the fact that Marco Rubio is going far in American politics. Manuel Roig-Franzia delivers the story of how Rubio came up so fast and why. It’s a classic American odyssey: his parents left Cuba for a better economic life in Miami a few years before Castro came to power; his father worked as a bartender, his mother as a maid and then stock clerk at Kmart. When the cocaine cowboys were terrorizing south Florida, Rubio’s family moved to Vegas, where his father worked in a gambling hall. When they moved back to south Florida, the small but tough Rubio made the football team, became an expert on the Miami Dolphins, and raced to begin a political career minutes after graduating from law school. By the time he was sworn in as speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 2000, he was the youngest person and the first Hispanic to hold that position. Mike Huckabee likes to say: “He is our Barack Obama with substance.” Marco describes all facets of this policy wonk married to a former Dolphins cheerleader with whom he has four children. Rubio has the endurance, smarts and charisma to be a presence on the American political scene for years to come. This is a book his fans, and critics, must read.

Few politicians have risen to national prominence as quickly as Marco Rubio. Here is the full story of his unlikely journey. Florida Senator Marco Rubio electrified the 2012 Republican National Con­vention by telling the story of his parents, who were struggling immigrants from Cuba. They embraced their new country and taught their children to appreciate its unique opportunities. Every sacrifice they made over the years, as they worked hard at blue-collar jobs in Miami and Las Vegas, was for their children. Young Marco grew up dreaming about football, not politics. In this fas­cinating memoir, he reveals how he ended up running for the West Miami City Commission, and then the Florida House of Representatives. In just six years he rose to Speaker of the Florida House. He then won his U.S. Senate campaign as an extreme long shot. Now Rubio speaks on the national stage about the better future that’s possible if we return to our founding principles. In that vision, as in his fam­ily’s story, Rubio proves that the American Dream is still alive for those who pursue it.

Get ready to have all your illusions of the glamorous Italian expat life shattered in this hilarious, irreverent memoir of a young American woman's romantic (or rather, unromantic) misadventures in the eternal city. Handsome, charming Roman men; perfectly made cappuccino and risotto; breathtakingly beautiful antiquities and that incomparable Italian light—none of these are perhaps quite as idyllic as they might seem to the casual traveler. With a jaded eye but an always vulnerable heart, Geoghegan gives us the anti-Eat, Pray, Love, a tale every bit as atmospheric but way funnier than the runaway best-seller. This is what life in Italy really looks like when you're a 30-something woman running from grief and trying to find the way back to love.

Beginning in the late 1950s political leaders in Venezuela built what they celebrated as Latin America’s most stable democracy. But outside the staid halls of power, in the gritty barrios of a rapidly urbanizing country, another politics was rising—unruly, contentious, and clamoring for inclusion. Based on years of archival and ethnographic research in Venezuela’s largest public housing community, Barrio Rising delivers the first in-depth history of urban popular politics before the Bolivarian Revolution, providing crucial context for understanding the democracy that emerged during the presidency of Hugo Chávez. In the mid-1950s, a military government bent on modernizing Venezuela razed dozens of slums in the heart of the capital Caracas, replacing them with massive buildings to house the city’s working poor. The project remained unfinished when the dictatorship fell on January 23, 1958, and in a matter of days city residents illegally occupied thousands of apartments, squatted on green spaces, and renamed the neighborhood to honor the emerging democracy: the 23 de Enero (January 23). During the next thirty years, through eviction efforts, guerrilla conflict, state violence, internal strife, and official neglect, inhabitants of el veintitrés learned to use their strategic location and symbolic tie to the promise of democracy in order to demand a better life. Granting legitimacy to the state through the vote but protesting its failings with violent street actions when necessary, they laid the foundation for an expansive understanding of democracy—both radical and electoral—whose features still resonate today. Blending rich narrative accounts with incisive analyses of urban space, politics, and everyday life, Barrio Rising offers a sweeping reinterpretation of modern Venezuelan history as seen not by its leaders but by residents of one of the country’s most distinctive popular neighborhoods.

In this volume, Nicholas R. Jones analyzes white appropriations of black African voices in Spanish theater from the 1500s through the 1700s, when the performance of Africanized Castilian, commonly referred to as habla de negros (black speech), was in vogue. Focusing on Spanish Golden Age theater and performative poetry from authors such as Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Rueda, and Rodrigo de Reinosa, Jones makes a strong case for revising the belief, long held by literary critics and linguists, that white appropriations and representations of habla de negros language are “racist buffoonery” or stereotype. Instead, Jones shows black characters who laugh, sing, and shout, ultimately combating the violent desire of white supremacy. By placing early modern Iberia in conversation with discourses on African diaspora studies, Jones showcases how black Africans and their descendants who built communities in early modern Spain were rendered legible in performative literary texts. Accessibly written and theoretically sophisticated, Jones’s groundbreaking study elucidates the ways that habla de negros animated black Africans’ agency, empowered their resistance, and highlighted their African cultural retentions. This must-read book on identity building, performance, and race will captivate audiences across disciplines.

This work is an academic pursuit that aims to produce innovative scholarly general interest that explores, through a fresh perspective and from a historical approach and a multidisciplinary angle, an understudied subject of Colonial and Early Independent Mexico’s History: Islam.

An innovative study which explores how the presence of Muslim communities transformed Europe and stimulated Christian society to define itself.

Cork oak has historically been an important species in the western Mediterranean—ecologically as a canopy or “framework” tree in natural woodlands, and culturally as an economically valuable resource that underpins local economies. Both the natural woodlands and the derived cultural systems are experiencing rapid change, and whether or not they are resilient enough to adapt to that change is an open question. Cork Oak Woodlands on the Edge provides a synthesis of the most up-to-date, scientific, and practical information on the management of cork oak woodlands and the cultural systems that depend on cork oak. In addition, Cork Oak Woodlands on the Edge offers ten site profiles written by local experts that present an in-depth vision of cork oak woodlands across a range of biophysical, historical, and cultural contexts, with sixteen pages of full-color photos that illustrate the tree, agro-silvopastoral systems, products, resident biodiversity, and more. Cork Oak Woodlands on the Edge is an important book for anyone interested in the future of cork oak woodlands, or in the management of cultural landscapes and their associated land-use systems. In a changing world full of risks and surprises, it represents an excellent example of a multidisciplinary and holistic approach to studying, managing, and restoring an ecosystem, and will serve as a guide for other studies of this kind.

Explores the potential of new types of anion-binding catalysts to solve challenging synthetic problems Anion-Binding Catalysis introduces readers to the use of anion-binding processes in catalytic chemical activation, exploring how this approach can contribute to the future design of novel synthetic transformations. Featuring contributions by world-renowned scientists in the field, this authoritative volume describes the structure, properties, and catalytic applications of anions as well as synthetic applications and practical analytical methods. In-depth chapters are organized by type of catalyst rather than reaction type, providing readers with an accessible overview of the existing classes of effective catalysts. The authors discuss the use of halogens as counteranions, the combination of (thio)urea and squaramide-based anion-binding with other types of organocatalysis, anion-binding catalysis by pnictogen and tetrel bonding, nucleophilic co-catalysis, anion-binding catalysis by pnictogen and tetrel bonding, and more. Helping readers appreciate and evaluate the potential of anion-binding catalysis, this timely book: Illustrates the historical development, activation mode, and importance of anion-binding in chemical catalysis Explains the analytic methods used to determine the anion-binding affinity of the catalysts Describes catalytic and synthetic applications of common NH- and OH-based hydrogen-donor catalysts as well as C-H triazole/triazolium catalysts Covers amino-catalysis involving enamine, dienamine, or iminium activation approaches Discusses new trends in the field of anion-binding catalysis, such as the combination of anion-binding with other types of catalysis Presenting the current state of the field as well as the synthetic potential of anion-binding catalysis in future, Anion-Binding Catalysis is essential reading for researchers in both academia and industry involved in organic synthesis, homogeneous catalysis, and pharmaceutical chemistry.