The concluding chapter synthesises the findings from the previous chapters to argue for a cultural integration of the western Indian Ocean through transoceanic mobilities of Arabic learning. It explores the many historical, social, and cultural aspects of Arabic learning based on those findings. Building on recent scholarship it reflects on how transoceanic histories of Arabic learning relate to histories of maritime trade in this period. It considers the importance of locating Arabic as a ‘cosmopolitan idiom of learning’ in early modern multilingual South Asia that shared many social, cultural, and political contexts with other languages.

This chapter goes beyond Surama Village and focuses on how Anglican missionaries from the Church Missionary Society (CMS) established missions in British Guiana during the mid nineteenth century that impacted the Makushi and other Indigenous groups. Based on archival sources, it closely describes how Thomas Youd formed three successive missions in the Makushi territory during the 1830s and 1840s. The chapter considers the relational modes, acquisitions of desiderata, and patterns of interaction evident among Makushi groups in this context. It considers the strategies and intentions involved in their seeking relations with Youd and other Anglican missionaries against the backdrop of ongoing threats of slaving expeditions directed against them from Brazil. The chapter also examines a later visit to the Makushi by an Anglican missionary during the 1850s and introduces early evidence of the aftermath of such missionisation. The chapter builds up to a discussion of the shamanic dimensions of these historical interactions.

This chapter provides conceptual models of state surrender and military-unit surrender, as well as commenting on individual surrender through time. The models also explain and define the process and consequences of surrender, including the phenomenon of surrender taking the form of withdrawal since World War II. In dealing with the surrender of individual soldiers, the chapter disputes the idea that classifying something as “surrender” depends on the surrendering party making a voluntary choice to yield, a usual part of dictionary definitions of the term. Combatants, most combatants it can be argued, become prisoners of war not because of their own decision but because of the decisions of their commanders. The chapter also discusses prisoners of war and detainees, distinguishing the former from the ladder. It also lists the possible fates of those held by the enemy. Beyond this, the chapter introduces the evolution of the laws of war as a major theme of the volume, from medieval customary practices to modern international conventions.

The striking image of three local Chinese women spectators at the Bandung Conference of 1955 was taken by Lisa Larsen, who was a photographer commissioned by LIFE magazine to cover the conference. What does this photograph tell us about international diplomacy? Was it a coincidence that the female photographer happened to take one of the most visually arresting photographs of women as diplomatic spectators? This chapter proposes to probe further the significance of gender in constructing images of international diplomacy. In general, visual sources of international diplomacy tend to portray women in multiple capacities as actors on the international stage. However, this stands in stark contrast to textual sources, which reveal very little female agency, mostly due to the narrowly defined notions of who constitutes a diplomatic actor in traditional approaches to studying diplomacy. Elsewhere, the author has argued that the invisibility of women in diplomacy can in itself be seen as a performative stance. In this chapter, she explores how we can ‘recover’ the lost female presence in diplomacy by privileging the female gaze, through the iconic female photographer.

During wartime, the Constitution requires the president to lead the nation as commander-in-chief. But what about first ladies? As wives, mothers, and co-equal partners, these “first ladies-in-chief” have found themselves serving as field companion to the commander-in-chief, mother-in-chief to sons on combat duty, steward of national resources, and caretakers to the nation’s wounded. This chapter considers six prominent first ladies during major American conflicts: Martha Washington and the Revolutionary War, Dolley Madison and the War of 1812, Mary Todd Lincoln and the Civil War, Edith Wilson and World War I, Eleanor Roosevelt and World War II, Lady Bird Johnson and Vietnam, and Barbara and Laura Bush during the first and second Gulf Wars. Taken together, they paint the first lady as a vital contributor to the nation’s military efforts who deserve our recognition and respect.

The introduction offers an overview of the book and discusses why studying first ladies matters.

The first ladies of the United States are often not thought about as activists. But in fact, many used their political position strategically to advocate for important reforms that benefited minorities and other underrepresented groups. Their activism from the White House helped social and political causes in different eras. Their unsung work contributed to their administration’s public profile and legacy. It also aided larger social justice campaigns going on throughout US history. This chapter explores the frequently unsung efforts of US first ladies in the realm of social advocacy to shed greater light on the significant work done by these women. It challenges the notion that first ladies were simply ornaments or companions for their husbands and highlights the actions that they took to create change.

The fifth chapter focuses on manuscript versions of al-Damāmīnī’s texts to trace their spread across the western Indian Ocean and beyond over the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. It argues that at this point a broad transoceanic community of readers shaped the circulation and reading of al-Damāmīnī’s grammar commentaries by developing new strategies of appropriating and accessing Arabic texts. New paratextual profiles emerged to enable the transregional spread of his scholarship through textual reproductions. Most significantly, the ‘table of contents’ (fihrist) appeared by the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a new reader-centred device employed in a range of philological texts (as a broad manuscript survey shows) to facilitate the study of Arabic, turn manuscript copies into works of reference, and individualise studying pursuits. Building on previous scholarship, the manuscript materials corroborate the emergence of new textual practices and show how the communities of the transregional formation across the western Indian Ocean became part of these transformations in the field of Arabic learned encounters.

The role of international diplomat developed for first ladies post–World War II. Although Edith Wilson and Eleanor Roosevelt set precedents, Jacqueline Kennedy solidified protocols for diplomatic behavior during the Cold War. First ladies use soft diplomacy as a counterbalance to military policy to advance civil society and democracy. This chapter examines travel as state diplomacy, skill in interpersonal relationship building, fashion and cultural diplomacy, and issue-based negotiation. Analysis includes Pat Nixon’s humanitarian travel and support of détente with China, Rosalynn Carter as surrogate president in Latin America and encourager of Middle East peace, Nancy Reagan as promoter of US–Soviet relations to end the Cold War, Hillary Clinton as a champion of women’s rights as human rights, Laura Bush’s support for Afghan women and girls, and Michelle Obama’s international efforts to promote girls’ education. These exemplary women indicate the power of first ladies to advance progress in education, health, foreign policy, and human rights.