AIDS is ravaging agriculture in Africa.
* Scientists report that AIDS is ravaging agriculture in Africa as fewer, less nutritious, and less profitable crops are being planted. Less labor-intensive crops like maize are replacing cash crops such as coffee. With 30 to 40 percent of the adult South African population HIV positive, there are fewer...

Allen F. Isaacman and Barbara S. Isaacman, Slavery and Beyond: the making of men and Chikunda ethnic identities in the unstable world of South-Central Africa, 1750-1920.
ALLEN F. ISAACMAN and BARBARA S. ISAACMAN, Slavery and Beyond: the making of men and Chikunda ethnic identities in the unstable world of South-Central Africa, 1750-1920. Portsmouth NH: Heinemann (pb US$29.95--0 325 00260 6; hb US$99.95--0 325 00261 4). 2004, 384 pp. This history of the rise...

Soldiers of the Patria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889-1937.
Soldiers of the Patria: A History of the Brazilian Army, 1889-1937, by Frank D. McCann. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2004. xxvi, 593 pp. $75.00 US (cloth). Frank McCann argues that the foundation of the roles played by the military in twentieth-century Brazil lies in the internal dynamics...

The Olympus of Oaxaca: the remains of impressive Zapotec temples and pyramids at Monte Alban testify to the glorious past of a culture whose creativity endures even today.
Time may erode man's lesser achievements, but it enhances our appreciation of the few that are genuinely great. Such a place is Monte Alban, once the ceremonial capital of Mexico's Zapotecs, who labored under the sweltering Oaxacan sun to create an Olympus to honor their gods, priests, and nobles....

Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy.
Beyond Florence: The Contours of Medieval and Early Modern Italy, edited by Paula Findlen, Michelle M. Fontaine, and Duane J. Osheim. Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2003. xviii, 324 pp. $65.00 US (cloth), $24.95 US (paper). This is a collection of sixteen essays revised from papers read at...

Killersting: the World Bank has vowed to tackle corruption and fight for transparency in the development programmes it funds. In light of this Sandhya Srinivasan takes a close look at one of its pet programmes in India.
The thick forests and natural wealth of Gomia in Northern India conceal an appalling poverty and a variety of illness. Malaria is one of these illnesses. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Men and women survive by selling coal extracted from abandoned coal mines, or working for daily wages...

Encuentro in Guatemala looks at gospel and culture. (News).
An encuentro can be a meeting, but it can also be an encounter. An encuentro in Guatemala in April proved to be an encounter, a meeting of minds between staff and students of seminaries in Canada and Central America. The participants -- two from E1 Salvador, two...

Fish money: for most of the world's population, daily life is based on often unspoken agreements between men and women. Nikki van der Gaag reports from the Gambian coastal village of Gunjur.
MONEY in Gunjur smells of fish. Not the larger, more pristine 50-delassie notes, but the crumpled smaller ones: the red 5, the green 10 and the small tinny silver one-delassie coins with the alligator on the back. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It is not surprising, for fish...

Rats' reward: Colombia's new President bribes his people to inform on one another. (Human Rights).
RINCON and his men are bleary-eyed. They were part of a dawn raid on the unsuspecting village of Vallejuelos, northeast of Medellin, which now lies strangely silent below the cliff face where we chat. It seems the higher the altitude here, the greater the lawlessness. Here, left-wing guerrilla groups...

Oeuvres completes, vol. 3: Theatre.
CYRANO DE BERGERAC, Oeuvres completes. Vol. III: Theatre. Ed. by ANDRE BLANC. (Sources classiques: Collection dirigee par Philippe Sellier, 32) Paris: Champion. 2001. 367 pp. ISBN 2-7453-0419-4. This volume contains Cyrano's two theatrical works Le Pedant joue et La Mort d'Agrippine. Of Cyrano's major works, they are the least...