Superficially, the period of Conservative rule since 2010 has been one of electoral stability. The Conservatives emerged as the largest party in four general elections in a row. As a result, the party has retained the reins of power for fourteen years. This represents the second longest period of government tenure for any one party in post-war British politics. Yet, in truth, it has been a period of unprecedented electoral instability and political change. Two of the four elections produced a hung parliament, an outcome that had only occurred once before in the post-war period, while a third only produced a small overall majority. After the first of these hung parliaments, in 2010, Britain was governed by a coalition for the first time since 1945, while in the second such parliament, between 2017 and 2019, a minority government entered into a ‘confidence and supply’ agreement with the Northern Irish Democratic Unionists. The right of prime ministers to call an election at a time of their own choosing was taken away, only to result in parliamentary tussles that, in the event, failed to stop two prime ministers from eventually holding an election well before the parliamentary term was due to come to an end.

This chapter continues the biography of Wabeladio Payi. In contrast to the previous chapter, it focuses on his arrival in Kinshasa in the early 1980s and on how he managed to convince academics and scientists that he had something new to say to both artists and scientists. It also explores the times when Wabeladio was accused of being ‘mad’.

One of the most important and daunting roles of the early academic is the pursuit of NIH grant funding. Although NIH funding allows for great autonomy and comes with validation and prestige, the process can feel overwhelming even for the most seasoned investigators. Therefore, being armed with information is crucial. Aiming to provide a guide to NIH grants with the early stage investigator in mind, this chapter outlines many of the key issues you will tackle throughout the process. These include: a) Developing Your Idea; b) Finding the Right Mechanism for You and Your Idea; c) Preparing Your Application; d) Submission and Receipt of Your Application; e) The Review Process; and f) Post-Review Strategies. These issues are addressed in light of the recent changes in the NIH grant submission and review process to provide an objective source, complimented by our favorite tips for your consideration.

African American culture is best understood as an ongoing community conversation about success that produces homemade citizenship. Because black success so often inspires violence, the community conversation constantly defines and redefines achievement. To pursue success, African Americans debate not only the strategies for attaining it but also its very contours and parameters. That is, they debate how one will even know if one has achieved. As they engage in this process, African Americans create a citizenship that is homemade. Denied basic ingredients like safety by the land of their birth, they cultivate a sense of belonging and achievement that does not depend on civic inclusion; it is a belonging with recourse beyond the nation-state. To recognize homemade citizenship, scholars, teachers, and general readers must look through the lens of achievement rather than resistance. This approach proves especially illuminating when applied to works, such as slave narratives, that readers presume exist to protest injustice. Using the Narrative of Henry Box Brown as a case study, this essay demonstrates the power of reading with an eye toward accomplishment. Brown’s narrative proves animated by a commitment to defining, redefining, and pursuing success while knowing victories inspire violence.

Publishing short stories: writing websites, print periodicals, competitions. Submission tips. The relationship between agents and editors. How editors make decisions. Targeting and pitching a novel. Understanding and getting value from rejection. Holding your nerve. The writing life: a place to work; a time to work; keeping a notebook; finding a community of writers. Writer’s block and how to avoid it. Set achievable goals. The pleasures of writing.

‘If we believe we’ve said everything we want to say we may as well give up writing. Everything we write is an adventure, an attempt at mastering what we might never quite conquer. You’ve finished when you know you’ve done everything you can to make it as true and good as it can be.’

Chapter 8 assembles for the first time the available information about performance histories of earlier popular opera between 1714 and 1790, aiming to discover whether a ‘core’ or ‘canon’ of these works may legitimately be talked of. The introduction explains sources and methods, followed by tables showing for exactly how long the most-seen works held the stage. ‘The Crisis of 1745’ details the economic difficulties of the Comédie-Française, Comédie-Italienne and Fair theatres which lay behind anticompetitive strategies. Favart’s Acajou was one flashpoint, followed by Anne-Marie Du Boccage’s published attack on the Opéra Comique in 1745. ‘Theatre Politics and the Bouffon Legacy’ concerns the backstage history of rivalry between the Opéra Comique and Comédie-Italienne during the final decade of competition, centred on their responses to a revolution in public taste: enthusiasm for comic intermezzi at the Opéra during 1752–54. The Opéra is shown to have played an increasingly defensive game. ‘Creating a Repertory’ is based on close analysis of revivals of popular opera, seen together with Favart’s new role as programming manager at the Opéra Comique. A distinct core of repeatable works is finally identifiable, though revivals can be shown to have involved updating.

Does Socrates believe that virtue is necessary for happiness? If so, those who lack virtue cannot be happy. But virtue, Socrates also believes, is a kind of knowledge. Yet Socrates himself persistently disclaims having the kind of knowledge that seems to be required. If Plato’s exemplar of a human being lacked knowledge, he must therefore also have lacked virtue. Accordingly, some scholars have concluded that neither Socrates nor any other human being can have any positive happiness – just relative degrees of wretchedness – in life. Provides a much more optimistic account of the Socratic view in which the craft model allows for self-improvement in knowledge and virtue, to such a degree that some positive happiness is possible for even very imperfect human beings. Undertakes detailed analyses of important texts in which Socrates attributes some achievement in craftsmanship and argues that positive achievement does not entail a perfection standard or anything like mastery of a craft – including the most important craft of virtue.

Scholars have debated the various texts in which Socrates seems to indicate an extremely close – perhaps even logical or analytic – connection between virtue and happiness. Is virtue simply identical to happiness? Is virtue all that is needed – is it sufficient – for happiness? Some texts seem to indicate such a logical connection, but attributing the sufficiency thesis to Socrates also commits him to the view that even the worst disasters cannot make a good person unhappy or spoil a virtuous agent’s life. Other texts, however, seem to show that Socrates clearly did recognize our vulnerability to conditions that are beyond human control. Provides an interpretation of the Socratic view on this issue that denies the sufficiency thesis while maintaining a strong nomological connection between virtue and happiness. Greater virtue will always improve a human life, even if such improvement falls short of achieving positive happiness. Success comes in degrees, even in the most important pursuits.

This chapter first considers the basic structure of company law, and then looks at private equity structures in light of UK rules that prioritise the interests of the company over those of particular shareholders or their appointed director representatives.In particular, it considers the duty to promote the success of the company and the duty to exercise independent judgment – both applicable to company directors in UK law on an apparently mandatory basis.It considers some contractual responses to these rules, including some that are not currently commonly adopted.

The eleven months between the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 67 on 28 January 1949 and the formal transfer of sovereignty to the United States of Indonesia on 27 December 1949 presented the UN observers with new challenges. Ungoc had changed its name to Unci but, although there was no break in operations nor any change in organisation, clearly the situation was different now.

The chapter examines warnings relating to violent conflict and massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur, a region of Sudan. As a case of successful ‘crisis warning’ the 2004 Darfur crisis offers important lessons about persuasiveness, especially with regard to the role of senior officials as the chapter focuses on Andrew Natsios, then the administrator of the US Agency for International Development, and Mukesh Kapila, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Sudan. Drawing on extensive original research the chapter shows why these two officials had a variable persuasive impact over time and with different target organisations. The findings suggest that warner capacity and credibility are necessary if not always sufficient for achieving notice and acceptance. Receptivity factors played a facilitating role as they created an environment which was conducive for the warnings being accepted and which reinforced well-tailored warning messages. At the same time, the case shows that warning impact may depend on repeated attempts to get the message across, creativity in exploring alternative channels and routes, and a readiness among sources to take some career risks in order to achieve their intended goal eventually.