Not only are Hispanics the largest minority group in the United States, but Mexico is fast becoming our major trading partner, surpassing even Japan. In fact, the U.S. now has the fourth largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. How has this demographic group transformed the U.S. into a bi-lingual nation within the span of a generation? Why do Hispanics resist assimilation and insist on speaking Spanish in public life? And how can businesses effectively reach the emerging Hispanic consumer market with its estimated puchasing power of USD1 trillion by 2010? These questions constitute the single-most important marketing challenge for corporate America in the twenty-first century. This book examines the Hispanic worldview and how it informs people's economic decisions, both in the United States and across North America. It challenges the viewpoint that American culture will soon dominate its NAFTA trading partners, looks carefully at the market for Hispanic goods in the U.S. and the market for our goods throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and shows how marketeers are now reaching the Hispanic community domestically. The information and insights found here are essential for teachers, students, and professionals in the fields of international finance and world trade, as well as almost all areas of business, marketing, and strategic planning.

Not only are Hispanics the largest minority group in the United States, but Mexico is fast becoming our major trading partner, surpassing even Japan. In fact, the U.S. now has the fourth largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, after Mexico, Spain, and Argentina. How has this demographic group transformed the U.S. into a bi-lingual nation within the span of a generation? Why do Hispanics resist assimilation and insist on speaking Spanish in public life? And how can businesses effectively reach the emerging Hispanic consumer market with its estimated puchasing power of USD1 trillion by 2010? These questions constitute the single-most important marketing challenge for corporate America in the twenty-first century. This book examines the Hispanic worldview and how it informs people's economic decisions, both in the United States and across North America. It challenges the viewpoint that American culture will soon dominate its NAFTA trading partners, looks carefully at the market for Hispanic goods in the U.S. and the market for our goods throughout the Spanish-speaking world, and shows how marketeers are now reaching the Hispanic community domestically. The information and insights found here are essential for teachers, students, and professionals in the fields of international finance and world trade, as well as almost all areas of business, marketing, and strategic planning.

This hands-on manual provides Latinas with the tools they need to succeed at work by examining some of the societal and cultural obstacles that hinder their progress. Despite being 20 million strong, Latinas represent America's most undervalued human resource. This career guide is the only one of its kind to focus specifically on empowering the working women of the Latina community to embrace success and build skills for workplace advancement. The Latina's Guide to Success in the Workplace explores the complexity of the Hispanic/Latino identity and the impact of this culture on professional mobility. The author asserts that there are five obstacles which Latinas confront within their own belief system: the idea that women do not need an education; the assumption that the needs of men come first; a belief that it is sinful to desire money; the opinion that Latinas should not be ambitious; and the mindset that successful women in the United States lose their femininity. Throughout the book, up-to-date research, case studies, and inspirational interviews offer strategies for overcoming the cultural factors that limit Latinas and providing a roadmap for achieving success. Case studies that illustrate inspirational stories of Latina women A list of recommended behaviors for becoming successful at work Practical tips and techniques for creating a career path Interviews with some of the most successful Latinas in the United States

What tale would your cat tell? What secrets would your cat disclose about you? What stories would your cat share with the world? From around the world and across the ages cats now speak, tell the history of the world-and the human condition-from the perspective of meticulous feline observers. Andy Warhol, in the 1950s, created a series of cat illustrations that were subsequently published as 25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy. In occasional conversations over the years, speculating what a cat would say about his or her human companion was a theme in which he indulged: "Someone should rescue those poor cats from Edward Gorey's home," or "Imagine what Truman Capote's cat has seen over the years." Decades later, Mexican artist Jose Luis Loria embarked on an endeavor to create masterful illustrations of cats. Inspired by Warhol and Loria the tales assembled in this book link cats-and their human companions-on a journey, a journey where the private thoughts deep inside a cat's mind are now disclosed. From Marilyn Monroe to Catherine the Great, from Cardinal Richelieu to Jacqueline Kennedy, from Fidel Castro to Tennessee Williams ... 26 cats of the famous and infamous are now out of their bags, and telling all

Were the individuals who died on September 11, 2001 destined to die that day? In 1927, Thorton Wilder published a novel, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, that tells the story of the individuals who perished in the collapse of a rope bridge in the Andes mountain ranges of Peru. In that narrative, Brother Juniper, a Franciscan monk, embarks on a quest to find a cosmic answer to the question why those specific individuals died that day when the bridge collapsed. Hundreds of people crossed the bridge every day. Why were these individuals crossing the bridge at the exact moment when the bridge collapsed? The philosophical questions Wilder asks in his work of fiction are the same ones contemplated with anguish almost three quarters of a century later. Why did those specific passengers and crewmembers board those specific planes? Why were those 125 individuals at the Pentagon in those specific offices that morning? Why were the individuals at the World Trade Center there on that Tuesday-and not anywhere else? Why were so many first responders trapped at the site that would henceforth be known as Ground Zero? Was it in the stars? In The Bridge of San Luis Rey, Wilder concludes that "there is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning." Perhaps the same can be said of the events of September 11, 2001. This book includes the names and birth dates of all who died in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Science now confirms what we all instinctively knew to be true: chocolate enhances human sexual performance. Based on scores of medical studies which now link the chemicals in cacao - the bean from which chocolate is derived - with improved cardiovascular health, this book discusses the links between the consumption of dark cacao chocolate and an enhanced sex life. This is the first book that answers fundamental questions, such as: Which chocolate is associated with better sex? Which chocolate increases blood flow to the genitals? Which chocolate is associated with more vigorous orgasms? Which chocolate is best for treating erectile dysfunction in men and frigidity in women? The author examines more than 280 chocolate brands from around the world to arrive at the best chocolates for improving one's libido. The book also contains time-tested recipes that will allow you to enjoy chocolate as part of a regimen for enhanced sexual performance.

Mezcal, the smokier, darker and more sensual spirit from Mexico, has arrived. It isn't tequila, althought the two are related. Rather, mezcal is an artisanal spirit derived from the agave plant. It is in ascendance, praised for its authenticity and traditional craftsmanship. Mezcal is life, which means it is an adventure. To discover mezcal is to discover your own soul. Here, this authoritative book helps you discover Mezcal - the history, the creation of the product, the ways it is consumed, enjoyed and appreciated - the complete mystique.

In an ambitious new translation of Diego de Landa's Account of the Things of Yucatan (Relacion de las cosas de Yucatan), the editor revises and updates the language for the contemporary reader of English. In the process he captures the narrative power and intensity, the nuances and subtleties of meaning and the emotions of Landa's history of Yucatan at the time of Spanish arrival, conquest, and settlement of the peninsula. Landa's observations speak of his intellectual curiosity about and of his respect for the First Peoples of Yucatan. For instance, he credits the vast architectural legacy, from the pyramids to the monumental ceremonial centers, to the Mayas' ancestors, and not other "nations." At the same time, Landa surmises that the Maya of centuries past were healthier, better fed, and enjoyed a more diverse diet compared to the Maya of his time. This has only recently been confirmed through the analysis of human remains dating back to the Classic Maya period. These intellectual insights, however, stand in sharp contrast with Landa's conviction that the devil visited Yucatan, which led him to establish an Inquisition, for which he was denounced and made to defend himself before the Council of the Indies in Spain. This episode remains arguably the darkest one in Yucatan's post-Hispanic history. These beliefs about the presence of the devil, however, as the Salem witch trials a century later demonstrate, were common throughout the world at the time. Now, for the first time, both a new English-language translation and Landa's original Spanish-language manuscript are published in the same volume, offering readers the opportunity to read the text in both English and Spanish. This is the timeless historical work that constitutes the foundation of our understanding of the ambivalence that characterizes the co-existence of the Maya and Spaniards in Yucatan, an ambivalence that in many ways continues to the present day.

"If I were, upon dying, to come back as a ghost, I can think of no more beautiful a city to haunt than Merida" - Carlos Fuentes. What is it about the story of a haunting that appeals to our nature? What is it about Merida, with its history dating back to the 16th century when it was an isolated city in New Spain's Yucatan peninsula, that is so haunting and haunted? Why does it offer a rich history from which to draw out the ghosts that live here, some of which date back to when the Maya ruled in all their glory? There is, of course, a natural human fascination with ghost stories. In this collection the author has assembled some of the most captivating accounts of the ghosts, spirits and souls that inhabit Mexico's most haunted city. This full-color book offers the contemporary reader a fascinating insight into the lives-and afterlives-of some of the more intriguing characters to inhabit Merida. With riveting accounts of these tales of terror, Merida now has an authoritative book that tells the stories of the haunted places and the hauntings that characterize this most enchanting city in Mexico. Organized by neighborhood, the stories are told in a manner conducive to self-guided walking tours, with full addresses at the end of each story to facilitate the wandering of a curious pedestrian. Whether the hauntings are by dead Maya sacrificial virgins, lesbian suicides, disappeared Narcos, or vengeful mistresses, this book, in full color, is filled with exciting insights into the breathtaking diversity and exuberance of Merida's paranormal history.

The catalog of Mexican artist Jose Luis Loria Mendez's exhibition of feline art, "The Fraternity of the Eyes," which opened at the Fernando Garcia Ponce-MACAY Museum in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico in April 2014. El catalogo de la exposicion del pinto mexicano Jose Luis Loria Mendez, "La cofradia de los ojos," que se inauguro en el Museo Fernando Garcia Ponce-MACAY en Merida, Yucatan, Mexico en abril de 2014."

The bubble burst. Within months, dot-com once-millionaires were scratching around for jobs. Nevaer proves that the laws of classical economics were never repealed, and that the New Economy was more Old Economy than many people believed. His briskly provocative new book shows how the return of common sense is opening fresh opportunities for wealth creation in badly battered industries--the entertainment industry especially--and offers five keys to understanding the online economy overall. The crash, says Nevaer, was inevitable. Characteristics of the New Economy created market imperfections that led to total failures. The negative effects were not isolated. They hurt the whole economy. The online community also fostered undesired social outcomes--pathological consumer behavior--but the potential for more beneficial gains is still indisputable.

Nevaer applies the fundamental theories and ideas of classical economics to the world online, providing a concise understanding of what properly belongs to the Old Economy, and what belongs to the New. He examines the real--that is, sustainable--components of the New Economy centered on five industries: publishing, music, video games, and, to some dismay, gambling and adult entertainment. Meticulously researched and documented, Nevaer's book is an authoritative, probing account for analysts, researchers, students, and scholars. As a study of American culture and society, it is an entertaining read for knowledgeable people everywhere.

How did America's largest clothing retailer, an institution that changed the way Americans shopped and dressed, manage to rise so fast, then fall so hard? From its boom years in the 1970s, Gap's performance went from bad to dismal. By the close of the 1990s there was severe doubt it could survive at all. Gap's alleged labor practices around the world didn't help either. Nevaer leads you through the boom years of this extraordinary corporation, the acquisitions that soured, the product strategies that failed, and thus through the social history of America during those churning years--the changing mores and how they shaped not only the GAP but mass-merchandising itself worldwide.

From a single store in San Francisco in 1969, the Gap, which grew to include Banana Republic and Old Navy, was soon operating more than 3,800 stores with worldwide sales approaching $15 billion. Gap's traditional constituency-- Generation Y--could not be less interested. Gap kids and Baby Gap don't even register a blip on the radar screen. Nevaer shows how all this came about. He describes how the Gap's success in the last quarter of the 20th century parallels the development of consumerism in the United States. He shows how its ability to bridge generations holds lessons for others in corporate America. He also shows why the Gap's history can be seen as a reflection of America's, how it ran on the same track with the country's social mores, particularly in the rise of the antifashion revolution and the proliferation of gay aesthetics. Nevaer's book is a stunning achievement, a true and lasting examination of why we wear what we wear and of the industry that makes it happen.

There are no miracles in Latin America, says international consultant Louis Nevaer--only opportunities--and with economic integration well underway, these opportunities are more promising than ever for U.S. businesses. Trade barriers fell at the Summit of the Americas, and even the Mexican meltdown failed to dim the Latin American promise. How U.S. businesses can participate in these processes of democratization and liberalization in Latin America is the subject of Dr. Nevaer's wide-ranging discussion. With attention not only to economic and trade considerations, but also to social, political, and cultural events and characteristics of the Latin American business scene, Dr. Nevaer provides readers with unusually rich up-to-date insights into how business is done there and how U.S. businesspeople can do it. This is important reading for corporate management at all levels, economists, international bankers and investors, and for their colleagues in the academic community who share their interests.

Dr. Nevaer starts with a general discussion of American business and business people in Latin America, and then puts the Latin American business scene in historical perspective. He looks the same way at the Mexican meltdown, focusing not only on Mexico's recovery, but on the residual social and economic problems as well. He then discusses strategies for turbulent markets throughout Latin America, Central America, and the Caribbean Basin Nations, with fascinating insights into the things that U.S. businesspeople can--and cannot--expect in their day-to-day interactions with their Latin American counterparts. Of special interest are the fourteen appendices. Together they provide a detailed list of sources for business information--an easily accessed guide that executives with special needs and concerns will find essential, and which will also be of help to scholars and academic researchers.

As decisively as the collapse of the Soviet Union signaled a most definite conclusion to that utopian undertaking gone mad, so has NAFTA ended an economic counterpart in Mexico. The United States and Canada are embarking on a grand experiment, incorporating Mexico into their very own economies, creating the largest trading bloc in the world consisting of more than 360 million consumers in an economy that will surpass seven trillion American dollars. For corporate America, an enormous opportunity lies in the integration of the Mexican nation into the economic and social fabric of North America. International business consultant and economist Louis Nevaer explains what these opportunities are and offers sage advice on how U.S. corporations can capitalize on them.

The implementation of NAFTA heralds the final conclusion of the Mexican Revolution, and Mexico is now embarked on a race against time to make up for lost decades. Ernesto Zedillo, who will deliver Mexico to the 21st century, confronts enormous challenges as the authoritarian hegemony that characterizes the political economy of the Mexican nation-state is dismantled. NAFTA constitutes a blueprint for the systematic surrender of the Mexican economy. There is, however, no blueprint for the transformation of Mexico into a democracy. Herein lies the greatest risks to corporate America, for there is always the danger of self-destruction, as witnessed in some of the republics of the former Soviet Union. The discussion presented in this book examines the present realities of the Mexican nation in the age of free trade. In Part I opportunities and risks for corporate America are analyzed, not only within an economic context, but also within a cultural and historical one, as well. Presented in Part II are the processes that have shaped Mexico over the centuries--Spanish rule, Native American civilizations, the trauma of conquest--which have given rise to the Mexican persona and character. With this understanding as background, the American reader gains a strategic advantage in understanding how the Mexican psyche works and which buttons to push. Finally, Part III presents a practical approach to conducting business in Mexico, which ranges from the legal requirements of opening a subsidiary, to a warning about the prevalence of corruption in Mexican society, as well as the existence of racism in Mexican culture.

In a timely and important contribution to the management literature, Louis Nevaer and Steven Deck take a careful, critical look at the various forms of corporate restructurings prevalent today-alliances, mergers, and acquisitions-and at their long-term implications for the structure of corporate America. Taking issue with those who see the takeover frenzy as revitalizing American industry, the authors argue that instead the takeover business is weakening American industry and accelerating America's decline in the global economy. They analyze the opportunity costs being incurred by both individual firms and the entire nation through the wave of takeover activity in the 1980s, demonstrating that the large debts taken on by corporate America to either finance or fend off takeovers has hampered America's ability to compete effectively in world markets. The authors then identify the essential criteria for a truly successful alliance, merger, or acquisition and suggest models for such restructurings in the future.

Divided into five principal sections, the volume begins by examining the failure of current alliance, merger, and acquisition strategies. The authors discuss the economic effects of restructurings on stakeholders and employees and look at the post-acquisition financial performance of the new corporate entities. The next three sections present in-depth analyses of alliances, mergers, and acquisitions. For each type of restructuring, the authors identify and assess the management strategies commonly pursued and offer extended case-study examples of failed and successful strategies. In the final section, the authors point the way toward more effective strategic alliances. They explore selection strategies that can help ensure a successful alliance, discuss the critical area of market planning, and offer a model for the future based upon the real-world alliance between Vulcan Materials and Calizas Industriales del Carmen. Investment bankers, corporate executives, and mergers and acquisitions specialists will find this a balanced and constructive critique of the process of corporate restructuring that is today such an integral feature of the contemporary business scene.

The unprecedented global economic growth of recent decades is closely tied to the trading relations that have developed in the postwar period. The authors of "The Protectionist Threat to Corporate America" explore the potential impact of protectionism on these relationships, arguing that trade barriers pose a danger not only to U.S. economic growth but to world trade as a whole. Gearing their discussion to the needs of the business community, they offer a clear, systematic explanation of the underlying principles that govern international trade, the consequences of protectionism, and practical strategies for developing effective competition.

The first four chapters examine the nature of trade, the power relations that influence it, and the dilemma created by trade deficits, monetary instability, and declining competitiveness. In the next section, Nevaer and Deck outline a four-point program designed to reverse the slippage in productivity and competitiveness that has eroded America's economic position in the world community. They present guidelines for creating a competitive advantage, maximizing strengths, utilizing a more dynamic management style, and harnessing the benefits of economies of scale and scope. In case studies of industries in the service sector and the high-tech field, Nevaer and Deck show how a competitive edge can be achieved by identifying opportunities and developing sound strategies for exploiting them. An important working tool for corporate managers, this book will enable business people to see beyond current political rhetoric and make realistic decisions on some of the most fundamental issues affecting the nation's economy.

The authors examine the reasons for the problems currently afflicting corporate America, particularly the loss of global competitive advantage, and review the track record of traditional strategic planning and portfolio management. The problems of recent years, they demonstrate, have been caused when managers neglect to consider the current economic environment when developing strategic plans. They go on to offer a systematic approach to addressing the structural problems of traditional portfolio planning and present concrete proposals for generating increased business, establishing horizontal relationships, increasing commitment through long-term planning, and incorporating prevailing economic conditions into the business plan. Finally, the authors present a workable management system for the implementation of portfolio strategies in turbulent economic times that focuses on optimal use of corporate resources. Numerous case studies and figures reinforce points made in the text.

The ideas in this volume are based on the authors' assumption that the deficit economy in which the United States finds itself will exist for the remainder of the century. They discuss what the consequences of a deficit economy mean for corporate finances and management. Nevaer and Deck suggest tools needed to cope with and survive a deficit economy. They address such concerns for executives as corporate debt policy, cash management, financial flexibility, project financing, and pension planning. "Business Library Newsletter"

While Nevaer and Deck underscore the need for a rational and realistic agenda to confront adequately the gravity of the problems the government has created by incurring massive federal deficits, they assume that policymakers will continue to disregard the dangers these problems pose and that members of the business community must be able to overcome and work around the challenges they represent. The authors discuss the ramifications of a Deficit Economy and its effect upon the national economy and business. They offer concrete proposals for avoiding common pitfalls and for developing strategies in order to survive. Finally, they provide an explanation of the international implications of high real intrest rates, trade deficits, and capital inflows from abroad.