Launched at a time of major economic change and an uncommon era in business, this new annual series presents the most intriguing and rigorous coverage of the year's well-known and crucial-to-know developments in business and finance.

"Griffin Watts is 13 years old in 1974 New York, a city which, at the brink of financial collapse, seems to crumble around him at roughly the same rate as his family. Desperate to forge a connection to his father, Griffin gets co-opted into his illicit and dangerous architectural salvage business, which allows him to discover the centuries old sculptures (gargoyles) carved into buildings all over the city by immigrant artisans. As his father's obsession...

"Field of Battle presents the world today as nothing less than a war in progress, with Mexico an illustrative microcosm of the developing geopolitical scenario: a battlefield in which violence, drug trafficking, and organized crime--as well as the alegal state that works alongside all of this in the guise of fighting against it--hold sway. The rule of law has been replaced by the dominance of alegality and the rise of the "a-state." This war scenario...