The humanitarian and military spheres have never been as different as distinct as they might appear. In fact, the relationship between civilians and the military during and after war has been closely intertwined – in some cases, humanitarians and the military have been one and the same. To help explain how this relationship evolved over time, this chapter examines three closely interlinked stimuli – technology, strategy and ethics – which both created the need for humanitarians and prompted the military to undertake “humanitarian” tasks.

This chapter not only provides a general account of Afghanistan’s past but focuses on the history of the humanitarian-military relationship prior to the 2001 invasion. It uses the framework developed in Chapter 3 in analyzing the recent history of Afghanistan within the context of humanitarian-military relations. Three elements – technology, strategy and ethics – were established as historical drivers contributing to a close relationship between humanitarians and the military. This chapter traces five periods (from 1945-2001) which will be examined in light of these three elements.

This chapter explores some of the history that led to the belated breakthrough of Black and Asian British comedy, looking at the production of jokes about race and colour, and questioning what these jokes tell us about British multiculturalism. It questions the ways in which jokes about Black and Asian minorities functioned in a period of overwhelming white control. The chapter looks at one early attempt to give voice to Black British comedy, the production of London Weekend Television's (LWT) family comedy, The Fosters, in 1976-1977. By focusing on employment rather than the racial conflict, The Fosters attempted to speak to the primary challenges of the Black community as seen from within. The series also focuses on cross-generational conflict and, in particular, disagreements between first and second generation Black Britons, a theme which went on to dominate much Black and Asian-written television and theatre in Britain.

The stained glass studio established by Joseph Bell in Bristol presents an ideal case study: many of Bell's windows survive intact and rare archival information about the firm survives. In addition to the jobs book Joseph Bell's notebooks have survived, allowing a unique insight into how a glass-painter educated himself in the early Victorian period. The importance of Bell's technical knowledge in the early 1840s is underlined by the type of commissions he received during this period. Bell's connection to the Bristol and West of England Architectural Society (BWEAS) set him in the middle of a group of patrons keen to build, restore and decorate their churches. The availability and proximity of the archaeological information seems to have had a dramatic effect on Bell's glass. Some of the early stylistic labels that Bell attached to his products had nothing to do with the Gothic Revival.

This first chapter introduces the issues of Humanitarianism and conflict in Afghanistan. Five commonly held assumptions are presented and Afghanistan and its wider relevance are discussed. As a foundation, a number of key concepts are outlined and the book’s structure is presented.

The Beer family made stained glass from the earliest days of the Victorian Gothic Revival and did not cease until the last years of the nineteenth century. This chapter concentrates on the extant corpus of glass produced by Robert and Alfred Beer and the network of patrons that they served. Running a glass-painting business in a city like Exeter gave the Beers several potential advantages over a glass-painter like John Toms, who worked from a small market town. Toms's relationship with the Exeter Diocesan Architectural Society (EDAS) was probably distant at best; he did not enjoy the connections with architects and ecclesiologists that the Beers profited from. Many of Robert's early windows bear a strong resemblance to John Loveband Fulford's tracings of medieval glass. In 1850, when Alfred started doing the bulk of the figure work for the Beer studio, he was only twenty years old.

This chapter illustrates some of the ways in which stained glass fitted into the mid-Victorian world. Although there was quite a lot of interconnection between the leading members of the Gothic Revival in Europe, it is difficult to find any direct European influences on the English stained glass market. Ecclesiology undoubtedly stimulated the market for stained glass, but it also created problems for aspiring glass-painters. From 1845, a small but steady stream of monographs concerned with stained glass began to appear. The influences contributing to the revival of stained glass were social, religious and economic. Church-building was clearly a major influence on the revival of stained glass but cannot explain it alone: it is of course quite possible to erect a church with plain glass. The Oxford Movement was a theological renaissance that reinterpreted the identity of the Church of England in terms of its pre-Reformation roots.

This chapter examines a few of the glass painting operations and assesses their significance within the early Victorian market for stained glass. It illustrates whether Thomas Willement's glass was installed in ecclesiastical or secular contexts. William Wailes ran the most successful stained glass studio in early Victorian England. John Hardman was the only glass-painter allowed to exhibit in the Medieval Court and he was the only Englishman to win a prize medal for stained glass. There is some basis for suspecting that William Warrington was prejudiced against Wailes, and this too can be traced to the lower prices that Wailes charged for his glass. James Henry Nixon worked on the restoration of the famous medieval stained glass at St Neots in Cornwall as early as 1829. Eighteenth-century Gothic did, in fact, create considerable enthusiasm for stained glass.