Mexican culinary nationalists have enshrined Oaxaca as the “land of seven moles,” the diverse chile stews that provide an Indigenous counterpoint to the supposed cradle of creole gastronomy, Puebla, with its chile and chocolate centerpiece, mole poblano. Although the count of seven moles is an invented tradition, Oaxaca’s culinary roots indeed reach deep into the past, as is shown by the essays in this splendid collection. The volume also effectively illustrates the advances of the archaeological study of food, from an early focus on the processes of domestication and subsistence regimes.

At a recent Harvard Petrie-Flom Center event, Law and Policy of Psychedelic Medicine, author Ayelet Waldman offered a nuanced perspective on microdosing and government policy. I asked her how we could incorporate understandings of Indigenous cosmologies into our practices of understanding psychedelic integration both in clinical and non-clinical settings. She emphasized the importance of agency, arguing that Indigenous peoples who hold these lineages sacred should lead the conversation.

Oxford University Press, in collaboration with The Council on Foreign Relations, published Paul J. Angelo’s much-anticipated monograph in March 2024. The book is a comparative study, focusing on U.S. security policy to two countries in Latin America at roughly the same period, i.e. during the first fifth of the 21st century. From Peril to Partnership represents a nearly 20-year focus by the author on Latin America in general, Colombia and Mexico, specifically.