Middle Platonism explained how a transcendent principle could relate to the material world by positing an intermediary, modeled after the Stoic active cause, that mediated the supreme principle's influence to the world while preserving its transcendence. Having similar concerns as Middle Platonism, Hellenistic Jewish sapientialism, early Christianity, and Gnosticism appropriated this intermediary doctrine as a means for understanding their relationship to God and to the cosmos. However, these traditions vary in their adaptation of this teaching due to their distinctive understanding of creation and humanity's place therein. The Jewish writings of Philo of Alexandria and Wisdom of Solomon espouse a holistic ontology, combining a Platonic appreciation for noetic reality with an ultimately positive view of creation and its place in human fulfillment. The early Christians texts of 1 Cor 8:6, Col 1:15-20, Heb 1:2-3, and the prologue of John provide an eschatological twist to this ontology when the intermediary figure finds final expression in Jesus Christ. Contrarily, Poimandres (CH 1) and the Apocryphon of John, both associated with the traditional rubric "Gnosticism", draw from Platonism to describe how creation is antithetical to human nature and its transcendent source.

More than a decade into the new millennium, the fusion of corporate and state power is the essential defining feature of US foreign policy. This edited volume critically examines the relationship between corporations and the US state in the development of foreign policies related to globalization.

Drawing together a wide range of contributors, this work explores the role of corporations in using US foreign policies to advance the interests of transnational capital in a wide range of contexts, including:

• how US government policies have contributed to the globalization of production and finance
• the ways in which transnational corporations have influenced the US relationship with China, a crucial linkage in the new era of transnational accumulation
• how transnational corporate power has shaped capital-labour relations, humanitarian intervention, structural adjustment policies, low-intensity democracy and the G20 summits
• the "corporate centrism" of the Obama Administration, whose policies have been consistent with the growing power of transnational capital in US foreign policymaking
• the politics and consequences of the embedded relationship between various sectors of the transnational capitalist class, global institutions and the US state, including the limits and contradictions of this relationship during the ongoing capitalist crisis.

This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of both US foreign policy and international political economy.

More than a decade into the new millennium, the fusion of corporate and state power is the essential defining feature of US foreign policy. This edited volume critically examines the relationship between corporations and the US state in the development of foreign policies related to globalization. Drawing together a wide range of contributors, this work explores the role of corporations in using US foreign policies to advance the interests of transnational capital in a wide range of contexts, including: how US government policies have contributed to the globalization of production and finance the ways in which transnational corporations have influenced the US relationship with China, a crucial linkage in the new era of transnational accumulation how transnational corporate power has shaped capital-labour relations, humanitarian intervention, structural adjustment policies, low-intensity democracy and the G20 summits the "corporate centrism" of the Obama Administration, whose policies have been consistent with the growing power of transnational capital in US foreign policymaking the politics and consequences of the embedded relationship between various sectors of the transnational capitalist class, global institutions and the US state, including the limits and contradictions of this relationship during the ongoing capitalist crisis. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of both US foreign policy and international political economy.

The cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union provided the context for U.S. policies toward Central America from the 1950s to the 1980s. Nonetheless, attitudes developed during the Cold War cannot explain the specific content of the U.S. foreign policies toward the region. Ronald W. Cox argues that U.S. business interests have worked with policymakers to develop trade, aid, and investment policies toward Central America. He reveals how the relationship between business groups and the state has been shaped by business competition, national security considerations, institutional structures, and instability in the Central American countries. Many see the state as autonomous and not influenced by business, but Cox argues that business groups have been able to take advantage of specific international circumstances to promote economic policies, thus increasing foreign investment. At the same time, division among business groups has affected foreign economic policies. This book is a provocative analysis of interest to scholars of international political economy, American foreign policy, comparative politics, and business-government relations.

"A Silent Struggle" chronicles the harsh realities of a young boy thrown at the mercy of the foster care system and ultimately sent to live in three foster homes and forced to endure inhumane treatment by his foster parents.