Crime rates and how crimes are presented to the public, specifically in the mass media, spread, and deepen individual and societal fear of crime. This fear of crime is a set of feelings which are orientated towards the problem of crime for society.

Anchored in the theoretical perspectives explored in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 surveys the historical development of infant pain denial from 1890 until 1950 in three scientific communities: the child study movement, behavioural psychology and paediatrics. The analysis shows the extent to which figurations of children’s pain were products of a struggle for recognition between contending disciplines and delves into the reasons for the scepticism towards pain, which had important consequences in paediatrics.

The opening chapter sets the scene for the remainder of the work with a detailed account of the flood traditions of the ancient world. It begins with the story of Noah and the flood as it occurs in the book of Genesis. It then traces the origin of the Biblical story in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh (thirteenth–twelfth century BCE) and the Babylonian Noah Uta-napishti. It then outlines how these flood traditions were appropriated within the early Jewish and Christian traditions. This is followed by an account of Greek and Roman Flood stories and how they were seen within the ancient world in relation to the Biblical and Mesopotamian traditions. Consideration is also given to Noah as ‘the man of righteousness’ in the New Testament, his role in the Jewish Sybilline Oracles (early first century BCE), and in the literature between the Old and New Testaments.

Before we step onto the path into the world of Pahlavi-era nostalgia, some context regarding the Pahlavi power structure, the trajectory leading to the establishment of the Rastakhiz Party, its ideological principles, and its position within that structure is needed, since its narratives and discourses constitute a pillar of this study.

The accession of colonies to international organisations is no longer considered compatible with modern ideas of sovereignty. Yet the allure of membership to an international body such as the United Nations for states-in-waiting continues to this day. This conclusion of the book reflects on how colonial membership, once a product of British colonialism, can provide precedents for aspiring states from Palestine to Greenland in asserting their international personality.

The story of urea stibamine is itself worthy of recording as a dramatic medical break-through which may be related…. A Bengali worker Dr U. N. Brahmachari, himself a chemist, was producing various products which he was testing on kala-azar cases. The Government Director of research programmes under the aegis of the Indian Research Fund Association, Colonel G. D. W. Greig IMS, asked him to send these to me to test at my special kala-azar hospital in Shillong, the capital of Assam. Among others, he sent me a product he called ‘urea stibamine’ which he had tried and merely passed over with a formal favourable comment. When I tested it I found it was so effective that cases could be treated and cured by about eight doses instead of taking many weeks or even months and then with unpredictable results.

To begin with, the question as to who Upendra Nath Brahmachari was can be addressed by referring to the remarks of Nilratan Sircar, an outstanding medico of Bengal. While presiding over a meeting of the Calcutta Medical Club, held on 20 September 1923, he said,

Brahmachari (see Figure 7.1) was one of the medical superstars, and an unsung hero, in the fight against one of the dangerous enemies of public health in the British Empire in India. The process of defeating this disease may be said to have been started with the introduction of tartar emetic by Leonard Rogers, and it reached a height of success with the availability of Brahmachari's brainchild, urea stibamine.

Taking its lead from Darren Aronofsky’s film ‘Noah’, the Epilogue shows how the legend of Noah and the flood has greater relevance in the present moment than any other legend in Western thought.