This chapter describes international maize-breeding research at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) across its first fifty years. Initially, breeders used landraces to create varieties whose seed, freely distributed through an international testing network, could be saved by farmers. A second phase in which CIMMYT forged partnerships with local and regional seed companies reflected the shift toward “market-led development.” This moderated free access to seed and fostered a gradual switch to hybrid technology. A trend among donors towards increased accountability and shorter funding cycles concurrently restricted CIMMYT’s investment in long-run research goals and accelerated a change of focus to Africa. Nonetheless, the development of germplasm tolerating drought and low soil fertility continued for decades, with eventual payoffs. Meanwhile, a long-running program to improve protein nutrition through high lysine maize varieties stalled due to lack of demand. In the twenty-first century, partnerships with global private seed companies allowed access to new technologies such as advanced screening methods, genomic selection, doubled haploids and gene editing.

The introduction presents the methodology used in the book and offers a brief outline of Rwanda's pre-mid-nineteenth century history.

At the Sherpur shrine of Laldas, I was introduced to Jogi and Mirasi bards during a religious performance. These bards were traditionally supported by the Meos under the jajmānī (patron–client) system, which gave the dominant Meos control over these socially and economically marginal Muslim communities. The landless and small landowner bards were hit most by the slow collapse of this patronage system. Additionally, the rise and popularity of the Tablighi Jamaat led most Meos to condemn their musical performances as perversion from Islam, which had once been greatly admired by them. Since the Tablighi doctrine frowns upon music, most Meos today see the bards’ performances as incompatible with Islam. Consequently, the Jogis and Mirasis felt pressured to abandon their performances, even though this was their livelihood, and they cherished their artistry.

As socially and economically marginalised communities, the Jogis and Mirasis had to negotiate the opinions and stances of their erstwhile patrons, whose hostility to their performance now threatens their everyday survival. The Jogi and Mirasi minstrels are employing the lyrics of their new poetic songs as a form of passive resistance in response to the Meo patrons’ interpretation of religious piety. More specifically, these minstrels are promoting a version of righteous behaviour that is universal and does not depend on organised religions.

Earlier, it was noted that when Muslim devotees of saints faced pressure, they resorted to tactics such as secrecy and concealment in order to deal with the Tablighi idea of religious discipline. The examples in Chapter 6 were not related to issues of livelihood but rather to the right to freely profess one's religious beliefs in saints. It was evident that the attempted imposition of the religious authority of the Tablighi Jamaat had severe consequences for many individuals beyond Sufi believers. This same theme is now being explored in relation to Muslim bards and their passive resistance against their former patrons, the Meos. The Meos frequently encouraged the bards to abandon their musical profession, join the Tablighi Jamaat and adopt its reformist principles. Considering the Indic theme of cultural interaction in the formation of all these communities, it is important to analyse the past and present forms of their interrelations and the nature of their religious subjectivity.

This chapter focuses on the recent (re)turn to history in scholarship of international relations (IR) on international law. We argue that two interrelated trends explain this development. The first is primarily internal to the field, where historically sensitive approaches have gained ground over the past thirty years. The second is external and the result of IR scholars’ productive engagement with debates in other fields, including global history, intellectual history and legal history. Although the new historical IR work on international law remains heavily indebted to histories produced outside the confines of the discipline, IR scholars at the vanguard of this movement are increasingly comfortable with writing histories themselves. New IR historical accounts have thus emerged, spanning broad subjects of international society, order and transformation, as well as specific areas of international law, including human rights, humanitarian law and international organisations. We review the history of the disciplinary divide between IR and legal history, outline how IR theoretical approaches have made use of history, highlight some of the thematic areas of the new IR historical work, and lay out possible future research directions.