As Haykon's refugees converge on Calandra, Zadok's army prepares for their final assault while Jack and Ranse struggle to convince the incompetent king that the annihilation of Calandra's people is imminent. Thane, Dor, and Tam return to their homeland seeking a talisman that might be their only hope in defeating the evil horde that is bent on their destruction but old jealousies and hatred could be the stumbling blocks that doom all good races to ultimate extinction. Jne seeks to regain her honor knowing that very likely it will end with her death. Time is running out for all as fate races to meet them in this explosive conclusion of the Master of the Tane series.

Walking in a Tjal-Dihn camp, Thane is unable to remember who he is or where he has been. Desperate to feel connected and with nowhere else to go, he asks to participate in the Tjal adoption ceremony that, if successfully completed, will assure him an honorable place in Tjal society. What he doesn't realize is that to fail is to forfeit his life. Dor struggles to understand his growing feelings for Tam as he helplessly watches her dranlok addiction consume her, threatening to take her away as it drains her will to live. Jack fights to convince the humans they are in danger of extinction but is disregarded by an inept king's apathy toward his own people. Meanwhile, Bedler's numbers continue to swell in anticipation of the coming massacre that will surely catch the humans, and the rest of the free races, in its wake of complete annihilation. With hope swiftly fading, all life hangs on the ability of a handful of soldiers to hold back the deadly tide while the sun quickly sets on a doomed world as night calls the raven.

Es kommt nicht darauf an, die Zukunft vor herzusagen, sondem auf sie vorbereitet zu sein. PERIKLES Es gibt keinen guten Wind fur jene, die nicht wissen, wohin sie segeJn wollen. SENECA Wie weit reichend die zu diskutierenden Fragen sind, war auch den Herausgebem zu Beginn der Arbeiten nicht kIar. Erst die Auseinandersetzung mit diesem Thema aus der Sicht unterschiedlicher Professionen machte das AusmaB deutIich. Die Zusanunen stellung der Beitriige war begleitet von einer Vielzahl von Erkenntnisprozessen tiber die Komplexitiit der Fragestellungen. Wir danken den Autoren fUr ihre unkonventionelle und aufschlussreiche Zusanunen arbeit. Das Ergebnis sind interessante und zugleich nachdenklich stimmende Meinun gen und Anregungen zu den derzeitigen organisatorischen EntwickIungen in den Kran kenkassen. Mit allen Autoren gemeinsam konnte das Ziel verwirkIicht werden, das organisatorische Geschehen im Gesundheitswesen und in den Kassen mit Abstand und aus vielen verschiedenen Blickrichtungen zu betrachten. Das alles ware nicht moglich gewesen, wenn uns die Autoren nicht in unserer Meinung zur Notwendigkeit dieses Buches untersttitzt und mit ihren Ideen neue Facetten des Themas eroffnet hiitten. Das vorliegende Ergebnis ist ein deutlicher Beweis fUr die Verbundenheit der Autoren mit dem deutschen Gesundheitswesen und ihr tiberaus grolles Interesse daran, dass dieses System auch in Zukunft solidarisch und sozial im Interesse der Menschen funktionieren kann. Die Suche nach wirtschaftlichen und zu gleich qualitiitsverbessemden Losungen liegt allen am Herzen. Wir mochten an dieser Stelle auch unseren Ehepartnem und Kindem danken, die uns tiber eine lange Zeit untersttitzt haben, diese Buchidee neben unserem beruflichen Alltag zu verwirkIichen."

Between 1947 and 1954, the Mexican and US governments waged a massive campaign against a devastating livestock plague, aftosa or foot-and-mouth disease. Absorbing over half of US economic aid to Latin America and involving thousands of veterinarians and ranchers from both countries, battalions of Mexican troops, and scientists from Europe and the Americas, the campaign against aftosa was unprecedented in size. Despite daunting obstacles and entrenched opposition, it successfully eradicated the virus in Mexico, and reshaped policies, institutions, and knowledge around the world. Using untapped sources from local, national, and international archives, Thomas Rath provides a comprehensive history of this campaign, the forces that shaped it - from presidents to peasants, scientists to journalists, pistoleros to priests, mountains to mules - and the complicated legacy it left. More broadly, it uses the campaign to explore the formation of the Mexican state, changing ideas of development and security, and the history of human-animal relations.

At the end of the Mexican Revolution in 1920, Mexico's large, rebellious army dominated national politics. By the 1940s, Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was led by a civilian president and claimed to have depoliticised the army and achieved the bloodless pacification of the Mexican countryside through land reform, schooling, and indigenismo. However, historian Thomas Rath argues, Mexico's celebrated demilitarisation was more protracted, conflict-ridden, and incomplete than most accounts assume. Civilian governments deployed troops as a police force, often aimed at political suppression, while officers meddled in provincial politics, engaged in corruption, and crafted official history, all against a backdrop of sustained popular protest and debate. Using newly available materials from military, intelligence, and diplomatic archives, Rath weaves together an analysis of national and regional politics, military education, conscription, veteran policy, and popular protest. In doing so, he challenges dominant interpretations of successful, top-down demilitarisation and questions the image of the post-1940 PRI regime as strong, stable, and legitimate. Rath also shows how the army's suppression of students and guerrillas in the 1960s and 1970s, and the more recent militarisation of policing, have long roots in Mexican history.