The conclusion takes stock of the variety of scientific practices and performances that animated the meetings of nineteenth-century medical societies. It identifies a process of growing autonomy of the medical sciences as a connecting thread. It also highlights how societies met a need for deliberation and debate among physicians, and acted as spaces where scientific standards could be set and imposed. This need for a broader basis did not disappear with the advent of professionalized science, the book concludes, but was articulated in new ways in the twentieth century.

This chapter introduces, and sets out the rationale for, the edited collection, which examines the extent to which UKAfrica policy has taken on a distinctive character since the end of the New Labour era (1997–2010). The central argument advanced is that there is a need for scholars to explore the connections between different domestic and international drivers of UK Africa policy if they are to better understand the relationships between Britain and Africa, as well as the successes and failures of efforts to influence policy in this area. The chapter outlines the main areas of focus for the collection, and reviews and synthesises existing literature on the UK–Africa relationship. The authors situate the collection within three areas of inquiry: change and continuity in UK interests in Africa (instrumentalisation), power dynamics within UK–Africa relationships (agency) and the place of Africa in domestic UK politics (identity).

Under David Cameron’s leadership from 2005 the Conservative Party embarked upon a campaign to rebrand the Party in the minds of voters. In the arena of international policy, a commitment to meet development spending targets and to maintain a separate Department for International Development marked significant shifts in Conservative approaches. Despite this, there is little analysis of the role of international development in rebranding, repositioning and redefining the Party. Even less attention has been paid to the particular role that Africa plays in these processes, in sharp contrast to extensive research on Africa’s role in relation to the self-identification and projected images of Labour Governments and leaders. This chapter begins to fill this gap. It analyses party documents, speeches by members of Cameron’s inner circle, and commentaries by Conservative media and the wider UK press to explore how Africa has featured in a narrative of change in relation to Conservative Party identity. In doing so it considers the role of Africa in defining a new Conservative identity as projected at three levels: within the Party, to potential voters and on an international stage.

This chapter reviews UK–Africa engagement since the late 1990s and assesses its drivers, successes and limitations. It looks at the implications of these factors for future policy, especially post-Brexit, and assesses how Africa will fit into emerging UK foreign policy in this new domestic and international policy environment. The chapter draws on policy discussions, fieldwork, and policy and academic publications on UK–Africa relations. It also benefits from ongoing research and engagement on UK Africa policy conducted at Chatham House. The author, Dr Alex Vines, has been Head of Chatham House’s Africa Programme since 2002.

The introduction highlights rarely studied aspects of medical sociability. When physicians gathered in societies to present, discuss, evaluate, publish and celebrate their studies, they followed specific rules and manners. By paying attention to the performative aspect of sociability, it becomes possible to uncover these manners and lay bare their origins in nineteenth-century civil society. Belgium is presented as a case study to this end. The presence of a liberally oriented bourgeoisie in the country’s major cities, the hesitant development of state infrastructure and the slow modernization of universities offered much room for civil engagement in the medical sciences.

This chapter explores the securitisation of UK development aid from the pre-2010 Labour Government to the post-2010 Conservative-led Government. It does so by examining official policy discourse in Department for International Development (DFID) aid programming in five sub-Saharan African countries: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda. It finds that, in line with the development discourse, aid securitisation as conceptualised here progressed in the five case-study countries gradually between 2002 and 2015. The most notable change from Labour to the Coalition Government in this regard was the higher preference to channel ‘securitised’ aid to countries of more strategic importance to the UK. A closer look at three examples of ‘securitised’ aid projects implemented by Conservative-led DFID unfortunately demonstrates that such projects are not likely to contribute to one of the key aims of securitised aid provision: the sustainable reduction of conflict and instability in the recipient countries.

The chapter presents an empirically original account of the evolution of UK Labour Party international development policy, and Africa’s place within that, in the Party’s years of opposition from 2010–17. The chapter explores the significant processes of policy development which took place during these years and draws on archival research and interviews with key politicians. It argues that the Party has used the Sustainable Development Goals and a renewed focus on inequality to move policy beyond the Blair–Brown era. The chapter identifies constraints on this policy rethinking, including internal party politics and processes, rapid turnovers of shadow secretaries of state and an increasingly hostile external environment. Continuing tensions in policy remain to be resolved if Labour is to meet the challenge of developing an effective left-of-centre policy programme for Africa.

The second book runs from the political crisis of thewinter of 828/9 to Wala’s death in August 836, butwas written with emphatic hindsight. The generaldrift of the narrative is backward-looking: if therulers had heeded Wala’s advice in the early 830s,the empire would not lie in ruins in the 850s.Radbert had been abbot of Corbie since 843/4. Aboutseven years later he was forced to retire from thisillustrious office. The ex-abbot added a polemicalsecond book to his funeral oration to Wala, in whichhe attacked Wala’s main enemies: the Empress Judith(Justina), the chamberlain Bernard (Naso) and, to alesser extent, Emperor Louis the Pious (Justinian).The second book is set in an imaginary late antiqueChristian empire, and reflects deeply on the lostunity of the Carolingian polity. It is a treasuretrove of political terminology, which was derivedfrom classical and patristic writing but imbued withnew meaning in the turbulent mid-ninth century.

This chapter discusses medical societies’ efforts to publish scientific journals. It discusses authors’ motivations for submitting articles, reviewers’ responses and ways of criticizing, editors’ decisions to reach new audiences, and publishers’ role in the financing and spreading of these journals. The chapter starts by tracing the origins of societies’ journals, placing their emergence against the cultural backdrop of a growing uneasiness with the practice of contrefaçon or reprinting (without authors’ permission). Central to societies’ unique position in the medical press was the reviewing of studies. This allowed medical societies to differentiate their journals from others by publishing original work. In the second half of the century, scientific publishing became more exclusive. Private practitioners succeeded less and less frequently in making it through the review process. The simultaneous appearance of new specialized medical journals meant that the ‘general’ journals published by medical societies became trapped in-between a specialized and an (equally emerging) popular medical press. By the end of the century, medical societies’ role as publishing houses seemed indeed played out.

Drawing on songs, poetry and archival sources, this chapter provides a brief history of the “Taranchi” (Uighur) migration from Ghulja and the upper Ili valley into Semirech’e in 1882, their involvement in the 1916 revolt, and the experiences of those who were sent to European Russia to work as labourers. It then explores the links between these and a notorious massacre of Uighurs by Bolshevik cavalry in 1918. Portrayed in Soviet sources as the suppression of counterrevolution, this chapter instead argues that it shows continuities with the violence and land grabs of settlers against the local population in 1916.

This chapter considers the impact of the Trade Justice Movement (TJM) on broader debates on African development. TJM became one of the three pillars of the Make Poverty History (MPH) coalition which played such a key role in 2005 in shaping understanding within the UK of the main barriers to African development. Often perceived as the poor relation of the MPH coalition, TJM’s focus on the rules of global trade added a crucial structural dimension to the diagnosis of African poverty and underdevelopment. In assessing the influence of TJM since its formation in 2000, the chapter considers three important dimensions. First, the concept ‘trade justice’ itself, how this has been framed and in particular how it relates to ‘fair trade’. Secondly, the organisational challenges faced by TJM given the wide range of non-governmental organisations involved and the changes in the composition of the UK Government since 2010. Thirdly, the focus of TJM’s advocacy is assessed and in particular the extent to which African development has featured in its campaigning since the dissolution of MPH. The chapter’s central argument is that TJM’s impact has been largely discursive rather than achieving significant changes in UK policy.