Analysing Northern and Mediterranean Europe together, this chapter challenges old and new grand narratives. There was urban growth during the sixth and seventh centuries in certain regions of northern and Mediterranean Europe, contrary to old notions of total urban decline linked to collapse paradigms of the western Roman Empire, including ideas about social collapse. There had been contractions, redefinitions of urban space and its uses, but in many places, those changes had already largely occurred in the later third and fourth centuries. This chapter traces the force of collaborative and competitive actions in the process of redefining urban spaces and spurring growth. Different social groups acted as drivers of the growth of cities and the creation of new forms of town between the sixth and twelfth centuries. The story of the Early Medieval city is one of diversity.

Gabriel Le Bras’s presentation of Boniface VIII as ‘symphoniste et modérateur’ remains valid.

The ‘special relationship’ between the thirteenth-century French monarchy and the papacy was fragile because it was so intense.

This chapter examines some of the ways in which African literatures have interacted with and related to trends and turns in ecocriticism specifically and the environmental humanities more broadly. Reading a long history of environmental writing from the continent, the chapter aims to complicate how ecological thinking in African literatures – and by extension postcolonial literatures, more generally – has often become conflated with narratives of decolonization. Offering some examples of ecocritical work, including by Rob Nixon, Cajetan Iheka, and Byron Caminero-Santangelo, the chapter will also demonstrate that an African ecocritical perspective has indeed “not arrived belatedly.” However, rather than starting with the mid twentieth century, the chapter returns to authors from the beginning of the twentieth century for the ways in which earlier forms of anti-colonial politics can be seen to be articulated through an ecological imaginary that predates formal decolonization by almost half a century.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

This chapter focuses on Periyar and Tamil cinema, particularly early Tamil cinema of the 1930s and the cinema of the Dravidian ideologues whom he mentored. The purpose is to engage with what has generally remained a contested terrain because of the common perception of Periyar's aversion to mainstream cinema vis-á-vis the penchant of his chief lieutenants like C. N. Annadurai (Anna) and M. Karunanidhi for it. One of the main reasons for the split of his protegees from the party he founded, the Dravidar Kazhagam (Federation of Dravidians; DK), to form the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Federation for the Progress of Dravidians; DMK) was their investment in electoral politics. Periyar, being a social reformer, who was preoccupied with the upliftment of the people on the fringes, oppressed by the systemic entrenchment of caste, religion, and gender, had his priority on questioning the status quo and challenging reactionary and regressive forces. Therefore, electoral ambitions predicated on consensual or concessional politics and opportunistic coalitions were anathema to him (Venkatachalapathy, 2021). Conversely, the Dravidian ideologues of the split faction veered towards electoral politics and believed in the potential of popular cinema for disseminating Dravidian ideology as filtered through the lens of mass appeal to mobilize people with the resultant electoral gains in terms of votes. Thus, the fascination of commercial cinema was, one could argue, at the root of the contention between the leader and his close and trusted disciples.

The chapter discusses approaches and findings in the field of urban governance, which emerged in urban history research from the 1990s onwards. The concept is based on the observation that traditional historiography of local administrations systematically underestimated or simplified the interrelation and inferences between the management of local public affairs, the central state and civil society. Studies in this field analyse such interferences and interactions between central and local government, civic associations, and popular culture, as well as political rituals and symbolic practices. The chapter builds on the pioneering work of Morris and Trainor (2000) and Gunn and Hulme (2020), who presented two complementary and overlapping approaches with a more structure-oriented and primarily cultural-historical perspective. The chapter first reflects on the major periods and shifts in urban governance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and then examines the relations between central states and local governments. Key processes such as the rise of the urban bourgeoisie and the modern networked city in the late nineteenth century, forms of governance in twentieth-century suburban areas, and urban governance in authoritarian states, including socialist cities, are discussed. Special attention is given to variations of urban governance in different European regions.

As postcolonialism turned its attention to African literature, culture, and intellectual history, a number of very productive alliances between postcolonial theory and theories of globalization, subaltern studies, decoloniality, and transnational cultural studies emerged, but the relationship to poststructuralism has always been an ambivalent one. Taking Sunday Anozie’s debt to structuralism as a point of departure, the shift from structuralist to poststructuralist readings – with specific reference to Homi Bhabha, Jacques Derrida, and Achille Mbembe – is seen as indicative of a general move from a relatively static model of analysis to a more dynamic one. Using the case studies of Sony Lab’ou Tansi and Abdelkebir Khatibi, the chapter argues that the theoretical richness and dynamism of poststructuralism, as evidenced by the proliferation of its tropes and strategic gestures, demonstrates clearly its value and potential for contemporary African contexts.

This chapter analyzes shifts in labor behavior in the context of institutional change. Focusing on the period of structural adjustment (1986–1997), it examines how austerity measures, such as spending cuts and increased labor market flexibility, fractured traditional state–labor alliances in Tunisia and Morocco. The chapter links unions’ responses to these reforms to differences in institutional practices. It argues that Tunisia’s innovations in collective bargaining moderated labor opposition and disrupted alliances between unions and political elites, while Morocco’s institutional stasis, combined with deteriorating economic conditions, generated new incentives for labor unions to mobilize against the regime.

The power struggle between debtors and creditors in the 1860s and 1870s signalled a time when face-to-face economic relationships showed signs of strain. Economic life was expanding in more impersonal ways, and debt litigation was increasing as debtors and creditors alike found themselves navigating risk without the long-standing close social ties that once characterised their relationships. Chapter 2 studies legal conflicts and legal codes to understand the risks people took when making contractual agreements and illuminates how they decided to trust each other. It shows debtors attempting to evade their obligations in myriad ways and depicts creditors transmitting their anxieties to the courts through the use of providencias precautorias (precautionary petitions) to sequester goods or people before the initiation of a formal civil suit. Examining legal codes from mediaeval Iberia to nineteenth-century civil law, this chapters shows how jurists, working in a long tradition, attempted to balance the interests of both parties. Although creditors generally prevailed in legal conflicts, the prospects of debtors were on the rise.

Periyar, to many in Tamil Nadu, was an atheist and iconoclast who called out belief in gods, superstitions, and rituals. He, of course, was all of that. But despite his rejection, he had a close engagement with religion and his critique was rooted in a close reading of religious texts, practices, and the values they espoused. He also creatively drew upon extant critiques of religion, Vedic and Abrahamic, and scholarly debates of his times to propound an alternative humanist ethic rooted in justice and fraternity. This chapter maps the multiple sources of his critique of religion and outlines the contours of his call for an ethical life.

There was much overlap between Periyar's thoughts and the critiques of scripturally sanctioned hierarchies of caste by spiritual and secular thinkers, both those who preceded him and those who lived in his times. Even though he was influenced by modernist critiques of religion emerging from the West, it is important to note that his views were in line with a long lineage of materialist philosophical traditions in the subcontinent.

Periyar became a militant atheist only in his forties. It was his vehement criticism of Brahminical Hinduism that led to his position of atheism. Periyar, on several occasions, observed that he was least interested in talking about God and religion.