The Introduction explains the ‘theses and documents’ mode of proceeding, provides a quick overview of the period covered historiography, including recent work by political scientists, explains the economic underpinnings of the religious systems analysed, and introduces the concept of ‘deep structure’.

The topic of ‘consumption and entrepreneurship in the city’ needs an ‘intra-city’ approach, which concentrates on the changes in the urban environment and the mutual effects of city governance and business actors. The chapter thematises the past 150 years using three time periods and three cities: first presenting the main characteristics of the era and then connecting it with the history of the city and its entrepreneurship. The period before the First World War was the age of industrialisation and the spread of factory production; the relationship between city and business is presented via Budapest, a newly born national capital, and the steam-mill industry. The inter-war period was a short but economically diverse and turbulent era, which was permeated by the influence of politics. In the case of Łódź, which rapidly grew earlier thanks to its textile industry, this was the era when the effects of the industry in the city came under the control of the city government. Finally, after the Second World War came the age of consumer society, with de-industrialisation. Sheffield’s centuries-old industrial history was no longer enough security for the future, but thanks to the city administration and urban entrepreneurship, there was no question of decline.

The Cambridge Companion to Periyar has been jointly edited by two researchers belonging to two different generations. When the first editor began his writing career in the mid-1980s, Periyar's was not a name that could be taken in genteel, academic circles. By the time the second editor began his doctoral work at a British university in 2011, the topic was a study in political theory, comparing Periyar with a major international thinker (Frantz Fanon). In the intervening generation, much had changed in the fortunes of academic writing on Periyar. After decades of being ignored or consigned to the margins by Indian sociologists and historians, we can say that Periyar has arrived in global scholarship. This volume exemplifies this turn.

Paralleling Periyar's rising influence during these intervening decades, there has been vigorous academic interest in studying the Dravidian movement. Newer and newer editions of Periyar's writings—covering the spectrum from multivolume sets to popular paperbacks—are being published every year. Any visitor to the annual Chennai Book Fair would be amazed by the piles of books by and on Periyar. The transformation of the Periyar Library and Research Centre housed in the Chennai headquarters of the Dravidar Kazhagam (DK) from a sweltering hall roofed by an asbestos sheet in 1981, when the first editor first consulted it, to a comfortable air-conditioned hall with expanded print resources indexes the growing academic interest in Periyar. Social media is also abuzz with young readers discussing animatedly the ideas of Periyar.

This chapter examines how labor mobilization returned to its earlier patterns of political militancy in Tunisia and business unionism in Morocco by the late 2000s. It situates the post-reform period (2000–2011) as a phase of continued decline for labor unions in both countries. However, the chapter links unions’ divergent reactions to differences in their internal governance structures, a legacy from previous experiences of institutional incorporation and exclusion. It highlights how democratic internal organization fosters labor militancy, while hierarchical structures hinder opposition, even when clear incentives to protest exist. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how labor mobilization advanced democratic transition in Tunisia while reinforcing authoritarianism in Morocco.

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.

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 the two Russian revolutions in 1917 and US responses to them. The Wilson administration enthusiastically welcomed the overthrow of the tsarist autocracy in March, quickly recognized the new Provisional Government, and extended large loans in the hope that a democratic Russia would stay in the war against Germany. But after radical, antiwar socialists seized power in November, the United States refused to recognize the new Soviet regime, provided covert aid to anti-Bolshevik (“White”) armies, and sent small military expeditions to Archangel and Vladivostok. Contrary to earlier studies, the chapter shows that the United States sought to speed the demise of the Bolshevik regime. US forces fought directly against the Red Army in northern Russia and battled Red partisans in the Far East, while the American Relief Administration, American Red Cross, and Young Men’s Christian Association all aided White armies. Despite the interventions by the United States and its allies, the Bolsheviks prevailed. The legacies of these events included the US rejection of diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia until 1933 and Soviet conceptions of Russia as a “besieged fortress.”

A little over a hundred years after the non-Brahmin manifesto put forth by the South Indian Liberal Federation, better known as the Justice Party, in 1916 that advocated for adequate representation for non-Brahmin groups, Tamil Nadu's legislative assembly is India's most diverse in terms of caste representation (Verniers et al., 2021).

This legislative assembly's diverseness has been often attributed to the capacious Dravidian– Tamil1 identity and its ethos, which continue to inform the politics of the Dravidian parties that have governed the state since 1967. The capaciousness of the ethos that defines the Dravidian– Tamil identity, which has allowed for horizontal solidarities across caste groups that otherwise share a hierarchical relationship, stems from the socio-economic and cultural aspirations of these groups. These horizontal solidarities and aspirations continue to derive both their legitimacy and sustainability from the ever incremental and yet radical, anti-caste episteme and activism of Periyar. This chapter is an attempt to engage with him and the way his ideas may be located or traversed both within and outside the literature of other academics, intellectuals, and scholars not just of the subcontinent but across the world. His anti-caste episteme and the vocabulary of his activism are informed by a demand for adequate representation of non-Brahmins—grounded either in their demographic weight or in a historically embedded sense of tension with Brahminical hegemony.

The significance of the Concordat of Worms transcends the limited awareness of the document among its contemporaries: it lead to lasting ritual expression of Gelasian dualism.