Hume’s ‘four essays on happiness’ are distinctive in Hume’s oeuvre, and not merely in the 1741 volume of Essays, Moral and Political in which they appeared. They are written in the style of philosophical monologues, with Hume ‘personating’ a representative of each of the main, late Hellenistic philosophical sects in turn. Each such representative, however, engages critically with the philosophical positions staked out by his rivals and antagonists. The ultimate question each of the philosophical sects seeks to answer is: what is the true end (summum bonum) of human life, and where is true contentment to be found? Scholars have tended to be preoccupied with the question of which sect best articulates Hume’s own underlying philosophical commitments. This chapter argues that such an approach is mistaken, because Hume dismissed the quest for the summum bonum altogether. Hume presented all the late Hellenistic philosophical sects as capturing something important about human life, and about the purpose of philosophical activity. Yet ancient moral philosophers had ultimately failed to develop the ‘science of man’ that Hume took to be the greatest achievement of modern philosophy. The four essays, then, reveal Hume’s keen – and lifelong – interest in the history of moral philosophy, and his attentiveness to the distinctive (and superior) character of modern approaches to the discipline.

Most discussions of Chinese military history and Chinese strategy rely heavily, sometimes exclusively, on Sunzi’s Art of War, with the occasional inclusion of a few other works of strategy. There is, however, no evidence that Sunzi or any other abstract strategist, mythical or real, influenced the actual course of campaigns or battles. The Warring States Period (475–221 BC) was brought to a close by the success of the Qin state’s relentless campaigns to create a unified empire. This not only required a new strategic goal – the complete destruction of any subsidiary political authority – but also created a new strategic reality in the form of an empire. Neither Sunzi nor any of the other Warring States strategist had anything to say about these problems. In fact, events like the Qin massacre of a reported 450,000 men after the Battle of Changping in 260 BC, which followed a prolonged siege, seems to have run counter to strategic writing, but was tremendously effective.

This chapter will turn to the actual campaigns of the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BC), followed by those that created the first imperial state in China in 221 BC, and finally the campaigns that created, maintained, lost, restored and then permanently lost the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220). War required rulers, generals and statesmen to devise and execute strategies that were not ideal, often failed and seldom accommodated higher moral values. This reality was portrayed clearly in most of the histories, even in the stylised and moralised anecdotes that are often all that is left to us.

The Introduction summarizes some relevant works on the topic of Dutch American slavery and presents the main argument of the book. It contends that slavery in New York was primarily rural, that it was profitable, and that the slave population grew mainly on account of its own domestic growth. It will show that New York’s slaves were controlled, bullied, and punished severely, but many were also given a surprising latitude to move around on their own, especially after the American Revolution, when New York’s slaves gradually gained legal freedoms and negotiated, through their own initiative, more room to operate.

Independent India developed a three-tiered approach to its grand strategy: first, dealing with the challenges of national integration and threats on its immediate periphery from Pakistan and the People’s Republic of China (PRC); second, carving a role for itself as a significant actor in the emergence of a recently decolonised Asia; third, attempting to shape the post-war global order through ideational means. It was able, to a very considerable extent, to achieve its first goal although it failed to secure its Himalayan border with the PRC and suffered a disastrous military defeat in 1962. Its second objective ultimately failed to materialise, largely because of flawed strategies and domestic constraints. The final aim met with very partial success. It played an outsized role in promoting decolonisation, had a limited impact on global disarmament negotiations and made minor contributions to the peaceful resolution of international disputes. Until the end of the Cold War, while India’s stated strategic goals mostly remained the same, it lacked the material capabilities and requisite moral authority to influence key developments in global politics. Only with renewed economic growth, growing military clout and an expanded diplomatic presence has India now become a more influential actor in global politics. However, domestic political choices may undermine the realisation of all three goals.

This chapter offers concluding reflections, taking readers through three intersecting vectors that run through the book. The first establishes how the segmented labour markets of the region are embedded within global structures and processes, which in turn shape domestic and regional structures and the frames through which social relations and regulations unfold. The second vector suggests three historical junctures as especially important in shaping labour trajectories in the region: (1) the partial incorporation of Omani labour and transnational Asian labouring classes into global capitalism through colonial development; (2) the wider integration of Gulf economies and labour markets into global capitalism through the expansion of the oil industry; and (3) the increasing embeddedness of the region in neoliberal capitalism. Finally, the third vector explains the liberalising and nationalising dialectic in labour governance The heterodox approach of the book offers a direction for future scholarship on the GPE of labour, demonstrating both how empirically-grounded national and regional case studies can highlight and explain global patterns, as well as how the present and future of work in local spaces are entangled within the trajectories of global capitalist development.

Chapter 18, The End (1931 - 2022). Since the narrative IS the analysis, there is no conclusion as such. Instead, The End provides a discussion of what a forward looking, thick description, humanistic approach to the financial crisis of 1931 have contributed to our knowledge in combination with the concepts embodied in the narrative. First, it is argued that the historical narrative provides new information exactly because writing the history forward brings out the uncertainty and need for sensemaking and narrative emplotment. This argument is discussed briefly in the context of the historiography of the 1931 crisis. Secondly, I ask what this narrative approach has contributed to our emprical and theoretical understanding of decision-making. By very briefly comparing with the Great financial crisis of 2008 I argue that uncertainty is a basic condition that requires sensemaking and narrative construction. I end by suggesting that rather than drawing lessons from history, history can be used as a way to reflect upon the past and the present.

“Of the Populousness of Ancient Nations” is by far the longest of Hume’s essays. Although it does not always receive the attention it merits, it is a very important text not only in relation to Hume’s political thought as a whole but also for a full understanding of the intellectual history of the long eighteenth century as it partook in a set of wide-ranging conversations about the causes of demographic growth in which T. R. Malthus, amongst others, became engaged. This chapter first revisits Montesquieu’s position on the issue of the relative populousness of ancient and modern nations to show not only the true nature of the Frenchman’s views and that of the dispute between him and Hume but also the extent to which Hume’s reading of Montesquieu provided the basis for the Scot’s reflections on republics, liberty, the status of women and slavery in that essay and elsewhere. It underscores the centrality of demography to political debates of the period.

Chapter 17, Exit (September 16 - October 23). In this chapter I follow the last few days before Britain leaves gold on September 21 after having exhausted the credits on the peg to the US dollar. The decision makes sterling decline by 20 per cent, which lead to massive losses not least for the Banque de France. J.P. Morgan is unhappy as well, seeing how the credits are gone with nothing to show for them. As Norman returns to Britain and the Bank, he is unhappy with the situation and Bank of England’s bad reputation following the devaluation. Rodd and Siepmann struggle to make sense of the situation, and Norman - some years later - expresses that it was all in vain. He was left ’a bitterly disappointed man.’ The narrative ends with this chapter.

The Civil War provides an example of a war between two democratic powers with similar constitutions, styles of government and military culture. This helps produce some similarities in strategy making (particularly the role of commanding generals) but also distinct differences, such as the control exercised by respective presidents. The differences in approach are apparent from the beginning of the war. The initial Confederate strategy of a cordon defense arose not from its president, Jefferson Davis, or his officials but from governors and commanders in the field. The Union’s initial strategy, the Anaconda Plan, came from the Union General in Chief, Winfield Scott. This position gave the Union’s creation of strategy a focus which the Confederates did not possess, leading to poor co-ordination of military forces across the Confederacy and weak political control of the South’s generals. This produced blunders such as the Confederate invasion of Kentucky – which had declared itself neutral – without Davis’s knowledge or consent. This was also an example of poor political military control in the South. By comparison, the leadership of Abraham Lincoln – after a weak start – provides an interesting case of the beneficial effects of strong political leadership in the creation and execution of strategy.

This chapter is concerned with recentring labour in regional development accounts and framing the claim of the book that the labour markets of Oman and the region are global. Most development accounts articulate Oman’s labour market as an object of development, a self-contained unit to be regulated and deregulated toward developmental ends. Development policy and academic discourse, in short, treat the labour market as a bounded, local space with enclosed, segmented social relations. In contrast to this development planning imaginary, this chapter argues that the labour market needs to be interpreted in global context and with a view of how regulation and relations transpire within, between, and across segmentations. The labour market is a place in which you can clearly see the outcomes of global market pressures and the competing poles for labour’s management and (de)regulation. These come from within but also outside national and regional boundaries. In combination, by looking from the bottom up, the labour market offers a space where we encounter humans in the economy and can more clearly visualise the human impact of economic transformations and choices.

Contrary to many Israelis’ self-perceptions, the Israeli population has grown significantly and is similar to modest-sized European nations. Significant numbers of recent Russian-origin immigrants are classified as ‘Jews’ by the state but not by the rabbinate and, consequently, face problems of marriage and other bureaucratic-controlled situations. Some second- and third-generation Ethiopian Israelis have been upwardly mobile while racism continues. The number of foreign workers and African refugee seekers has grown even as they are exploited. In contrast, the local gay communities are more accepted among the secular majority. Issues regarding a multicultural future are discussed.

From the 16th century onwards, the Republic of the United Provinces, or the Dutch Republic, developed into a state with extensive maritime economic activities (fisheries, trade and whaling) with an extensive trade network in Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, the Mediterranean and North and South America. In the wake of these developments, the navy of the republic found itself involved in many conflicts throughout the early modern era. Sometimes this was for conquest, but most of the time these involvements were to defend. In other words, the maritime power of the republic was mostly used for defensive, rather than offensive, operations. In this chapter we will explore two cases where the republic used naval powers: the Eighty Years War (1568–1648), a struggle between a few rebellious states in the Netherlands and the Spanish Habsburg Empire, and three wars between England and the republic that happened in the second half of the seventeenth century. We will discuss the sources, the presence of a maritime revolution, and the question of who was in charge in deciding the objective for the creation of grand strategy, who were the opponents, what were the causes of the wars, what where the objectives, what means were at the disposal of the republic to achieve its objectives, how priorities were decided and to what degree did cultural and emotional factors play a role in prioritisation.

Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, despite coming to power in similar circumstances, approached their rule in very different ways. In particular, it suggests that along with a contrast of style, in Keegan’s terms Alexander being a ‘heroic’ leader, his father an ‘unheroic’, one their approach and, as a consequence, the aims and practice of their strategies were quite different. While it could be argued that Philip’s was simply one of survival exacerbated by ever more ‘mission creep’ towards the south of Greece, here it is suggested that instead Philip had from very early on a firm proactive vision of ruling all Greece and used an integrated strategy of diplomacy, financial subversion, and military force to achieve that end and on its success established a firm method of retaining his rule. In contrast, Alexander, while tactically brilliant, unlike his father was a reactive rather than a proactive strategist and his campaigns are best seen as a series of micro-strategies responding to specific circumstances as opposed to an overarching vision. This approach explains the lack of a firm political strand to his strategy and the subsequent collapse of his empire on his death.