Advocates of institutional economics in history have pointed to the adoption of systems of rights inspired by economic liberalism as a major factor behind inequalities of development. This chapter assesses the claim’s validity in the nineteenth century, when legal reforms grounded in liberal economic theory – most importantly the securing of exclusive private property rights – swept first Europe and its colonial offshoots and then the rest of the world. It considers the intellectual origins of such legal changes, their revolutionary implementation in the European world, their enforcement often by means of empire elsewhere, and the retreat from economic liberalism at the end of the century. Theories of development based on institutional economics are right to stress the extent of legal changes ushered in by economic liberalism. But adopting a social and political perspective on the new economic rights of the nineteenth century imposes several nuances. First, outside the anglophone world, liberal economic rights were neither the product nor the precursor of liberal political institutions: the adoption of free market rules was more often the result of revolutions from above or imperial rule. Second, liberal economic rights were granted selectively. Even in the European world, those of women remained significantly restricted, while in colonial worlds a very large share of Indigenous populations was excluded. Third, when faced with some adverse effects of unfettered competition and under the influence of new nationalist and socialist ideas, lawmakers in the last decades of the century began to temper liberal economic rights to protect national producers, small business owners, and industrial or agricultural workers. Contrary to the sanguine interpretation derived from institutional economics, the triumph of liberal economic rights did not entail that of political liberty, it chiefly benefited wealthy European males, and it lasted only a few decades. Private property may not have been theft, but nor was it the infallible elixir of economic development.

The escalation of US military involvement in Vietnam in 1965 sparked a surge in international diplomacy to broker peace, or at least open direct peace talks, between Washington and Hanoi. This chapter recounts some of the myriad (failed) attempts to make progress by third parties – from countries to groups of countries (e.g., the Non-Aligned Movement and the British Commonwealth) to multilateral institutions (e.g., the United Nations) to nonstate actors (organizations, individuals) – in the three or so years before direct US–DRV discussions finally began in Paris in May 1968. Perhaps the most intriguing of these initiatives involved the communist world (i.e., the Soviet bloc, since Mao Zedongs China strongly opposed peace talks), which had embassies in and fraternal interparty contacts with Hanoi that most noncommunist countries lacked. As the communist representative on the three-member International Control Commission, Poland had especially intimate involvement with several peace bids. The chapter examines this history and whether (or not) genuine diplomatic opportunities may have existed to end the Vietnam War, or at least start serious peace talks, earlier, potentially saving many lives. It also probes the concurrent interrelationship between this diplomacy and broader international factors such as the Cold War and Sino-Soviet split.

In November 1945, the colonial government placed three Indian soldiers on trial for the crimes of waging war against the British Empire, murder, and abetment to murder. In what ultimately proved a foolhardy decision, the colonial administration decided to hold the trial in the historic Red Fort in Delhi, the site from where this book began. While the trial was intended to solidify military discipline and consolidate British legitimacy in India, the affair escalated into a major crisis of colonial authority. As the controversy around the trial grew, mercy once again emerged as a key terrain of political contestation in the final days of empire.

Throughout the long period of American involvement in Vietnam, Washington officials often justified US intervention by referring to the domino theory. Even before President Dwight D. Eisenhower formally articulated the theory in 1954, civilian as well as military analysts had set out a version of the theory, linking the outcome in Indochina to a chain reaction of regional and global effects. Defeat in Vietnam, they warned, would have calamitous consequences not merely for that country but for the rest of Southeast Asia and perhaps beyond. Over time, US officials moved to a less mechanistic, more psychological version of the theory. Credibility was the new watchword, as policymakers declared it essential to stand firm in Vietnam in order to demonstrate American determination to defend its vital interests not only in the region but around the world. But it was not only American credibility on the world stage that mattered; also at stake, officials feared, was their own and their party’s credibility at home. This chapter examines these permutations of the domino theory, with particular focus on the crucial 1964–5 period under Lyndon B. Johnson.

The state's climate is unique among Indian states. Following the Koppen– Geiger classification of climatic regions of the world, over two-thirds of the land in India is tropical savanna, desert or semi-arid. Most of Kerala is monsoonal or highland tropics. The difference is this. The average summer temperature in the former regions can reach levels high enough to dry up surface water. The monsoon rains relieve that aridity, but only for a few months in a year. That dual condition makes water storage and recycling a fundamental precondition for economic growth. It elevates the risk of droughts and diseases from seasonal or periodic acute water shortages. Kerala, by contrast, does not get as fierce a summer as the other areas of India and receives a lot more rainfall. That dual condition implies a natural immunity from seasonal food and water scarcity and a low disease risk.

With its extraordinary biodiversity, this is a vast storehouse for natural resources. The state has a surface area of 38,855 square kilometres and is bounded by the Arabian Sea to the west and the Western Ghats to the east. The eastern highlands, the central midlands and the western lowlands, with 580 kilometres of coastline, can access a wealth of ocean resources and means of subsistence for their fisherfolk and the general populace. Compared with semi-arid India, the benign environment largely explains the head start in life expectancy (Chapters 1 and 6). Further, nature provides industrial resources that cannot be found elsewhere. The highlands have the ideal climate for growing coffee, tea and spices. Low hills are often planted with rubber. The seaboard traded with West Asia for centuries. The state's Gulf connection, thus, had a prehistory. A large tourism business has developed by selling nature.

On the other hand, recent experience shows that climate change and overdevelopment can jointly raise the risk of disasters. In the first three weeks of August 2018, Kerala received 164 per cent of the average rainfall for that time of the year. The following floods were devastating, comparable only to a similar event in 1924. In 2019, extreme weather repeated, now causing landslides. Mining and quarrying, frequent blasting and unscientific changes in land use patterns affected the highland ecology.

This chapter focuses on ways to understand the Vietnam War through the operation of race in US interventions during the 1960s. As part of the inquiry, it examines friction between the United States and Panama in 1964 and the invasion of the Dominican Republic in 1965. France’s legacy in Vietnam and the US adaptation of French racialized colonial policies provide a backdrop for the war. The Cold War, rather than territorial annexation or economic exploitation, provided the chief rationale for the US presence in Vietnam and provided a path for particularly American forms of racism to emerge there and in areas of US domestic life that were affected by the conflict. In the interim, Vietnam served as a laboratory in which various theories about modernization and development were evaluated and carried out. The experiences of American minorities in the military are documented, including officials’ efforts to control dissidence in the ranks. African Americans, Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Asian Americans experienced the war in somewhat different ways, but all found themselves confronted by leading assumptions and practices about their minoritarian status. The war led many to see themselves as racially defined in a struggle whose costs were disproportionately borne by people of color amidst discrimination at home and by Vietnamese combatants abroad. As a result new sensibilities led to transformation in American civil society.

The Port, which had thrived off of its ambiguity and the smooth functioning of translocal networks, faced threats from growing nativism among its multiethnic constituency and the emergence of territorially focused regimes in its neighborhood. However, Mo Tianci was presented with several contingent opportunities to dominate the thrones of Siam and Cochinchina and forge his own state. But he lost on both occasions and ended up an exile in Siam, where he took refuge with his former rival, the half-Chaozhou Taksin. Suspecting him of trying to seize the throne, Taksin imprisoned him and his retinue, eventually resulting in his suicide. However, his descendants managed to play on the continued rivalry between Siam and Vietnam to ensure the survival of The Port as a distinct entity well into the nineteenth century, beyond its prime.

This chapter dismantles the long-standing narrative that social rights only emerged after civil and political rights, as a response to socialist critiques of liberalism. The foundations for such rights extend back to medieval Christian laws governing charity. It was the economic theories of the eighteenth century that secularized justifications for the “rights” of the neediest. French revolutionaries adopted these arguments, linking social rights to principles of reciprocity and duties, but they fought over who had the duty to finance them: the state (through taxes) or civil society (through markets and charity). As a result of these struggles, social rights became associated with “terror” and were abandoned. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church advanced its own understanding of social rights, grounded in the mutual obligations of humans in society (as opposed to the perceived individualism of the revolutionary declarations). These religious doctrines, together with certain strands of liberalism and socialism, informed conversations around social rights throughout the nineteenth century.

When, how, and why did the Vietnam War begin? Although its end is dated with great precision to April 30, 1975, there is no agreement as to when it began. The Vietnam War was an enormously complex conflict and even though any comprehensive reckoning of its causes must include the role of the United States, it did not begin as an “American War.” This volume presents the scholarship that has flourished since the 1990s to situate the war and its origins within longer chronologies and wider interpretative perspectives. The Vietnam War was a war for national liberation and an episode of major importance in the Global Cold War. Yet it was also a civil war, and civil warfare was a defining feature of the conflict from the outset. Understanding the Vietnamese and Indochinese origins of the Vietnam War is a critical first step toward reckoning with the history of this violent, costly, and multilayered war.

When, how, and why did the Vietnam War begin? Although its end is dated with great precision to April 30, 1975, there is no agreement as to when it began. The Vietnam War was an enormously complex conflict and even though any comprehensive reckoning of its causes must include the role of the United States, it did not begin as an “American War.” This volume presents the scholarship that has flourished since the 1990s to situate the war and its origins within longer chronologies and wider interpretative perspectives. The Vietnam War was a war for national liberation and an episode of major importance in the Global Cold War. Yet it was also a civil war, and civil warfare was a defining feature of the conflict from the outset. Understanding the Vietnamese and Indochinese origins of the Vietnam War is a critical first step toward reckoning with the history of this violent, costly, and multilayered war.