Chapter 4 contends that the communism of the early Republic would put it directly odds with the aims of its American ally. This “misalliance” would ultimately compromise both the counterinsurgency strategy in the South (which the Republic conceived as a social revolution as opposed to a mere pacification program), as well as the psychological warfare campaign carried out in the North. For the South Vietnamese, the campaign was to be an extension of the Marxist humanist strategy of social revolution, aimed at transforming the whole of Vietnamese society. For the Americans, on the other hand, the goal of the program was to discredit the Communist government by exposing its lack of democracy. In the end, this misalliance would lead to the collapse of the First Republic. In 1963, the regime was overthrown in a coup supported by US officials in a misguided attempt to uphold the image of the Republic as a liberal democracy. The coup would create a profound political crisis, compelling the USA to dramatically expand its military presence. Having undermined the Marxist humanist program of the early Republic, Washington policymakers would come to rely on a high-tech war of attrition in order to overcome the insurgency.

This chapter examines the mind-sets that frame twentieth- and early twenty-first-century United Kingdom social policy. These thought processes continue to marginalise deaf people from opportunities for meaningful employment and can be traced to their roots in the Poor Law legislation for England and Wales of 1834. The concept of ‘deserving and undeserving poor’ that underpinned the Poor Law placed deaf people in a legally ambivalent situation that has never adequately been resolved, and so they came to be regarded as ‘deserving’ almost by default because of their inability to hear. Although this legislation was finally abolished upon the creation of a welfare state in 1948, its ethos continues to practically exclude deaf and disabled people from the workplace by emphasising what it is assumed an individual cannot do, rather than on what (s)he can do.

In the spring of 1061, Burgheard son of Earl Æfgar of Mercia died returning from a journey to Rome, and his body was taken for burial in the basilica of the abbey of Saint-Rémi, Reims. Shortly afterward, his grieving parents gave the abbey an estate in Staffordshire, together with a beautifully illustrated gospel book, for the sake of their son's soul. The most recent study of this material established that, although its cover has been lost, the gospel book is almost certainly an extant manuscript, now Reims, Bibliothèque Municipale Carnegie, MS 9. This chapter examines two questions which illuminate this matter further: can Burgheard be identified in Domesday Book? and why did Burgheard go to Rome? In doing so, it addresses some of the methodological problems which have arisen in connection with recent work on Anglo-Saxon prosopography, in which Janet Nelson has played a leading role.

The dangers posed to political institutions following the passing of the individuals that toiled in their foundation reveals the important generational dynamics involved in the (re)founding of political communities. This chapter reflects on these dynamics by moving away from the context of European unification and taking a comparative perspective on the problems new polities experience with the loss of the generation of the founding. By drawing on accounts of memory and rupture in the history of the United States, it compares the current problems of Europe to the divisions America experienced in the period leading up to the Civil War. This brings the book into conversation with the broader debates on constitutional moments and the founding of political communities. It thus reflects further on how the dynamics of rupture, innovation, and generational change play out in the development of all political communities.

All over the country during the early years of Henry IV's reign, groups and individuals freely expressed their dissatisfaction with the rule of the new king. Such conversations were part of the 'infrapolitics' of later medieval England, the broad area of discussion, complaint and dissent that fell somewhere between wholehearted consent and open rebellion. Anxiety at the scope and effect of such seditious comments led to a relaxation, sanctioned by Henry IV and his judges, in the definition of what was legally admissible as evidence in certain cases directly affecting the person and security of the king: the evolution of the doctrine of 'treason by words'. The full extent of the Ricardian rumour has never been documented, while its place within the broader context of the abundant evidence for popular protest and discontent in the early years of Henry IV's reign remains to be considered.

The concluding afterword assesses the contribution of the preceding chapters to current debates about the roles of science and religion in shaping notions of identity, genealogy and legacy in the nineteenth century. Drawing on examples from various parts of the globe, the chapter posits the career of the American scientist, racist and biblical apologist Alexander Winchell as emblematic of some of the new directions and questions raised by this volume. The issues of identity and genealogy which pervade Winchell’s ethno-biblical science, and its enduring legacy, resonate with many of the topics interrogated by the volume. The preceding chapters confirm just how significant the Bible has been in the manufacturing and moulding of various identities. Lines of descent were also critical to the task of securing and stabilising identities. Whether human languages were of monogenetic or polygenetic origin exercised the minds of numerous students of philology. The use of the labels Hamitic, Japhetic and Semitic to designate lines of linguistic ancestry discloses how intimately connected the early science of language was with biblical thought-forms. The chapter concludes by exploring the pervasive legacy of the ideas and movements scrutinised in the volume in the present day.

In c. 1150 the author of Le roman de Thèbes supplemented a retelling of Statius's Thebaid with an original episode in which King Eteocles' appeal of treason against his man Daire le Roux is debated in the king's court. A fuller study of imaginary treason trials yields different conclusions partly because it reveals noteworthy continuities throughout this period not just in the motifs and stock characters found in trial scenes but in the manner of representing the bilateral ordeal (that is, a judicial duel or trial by battle) as an effective means of disproving false accusations of treason. In addition, the study of trial scenes shows significant continuities in the representation of treason against a lord, not as a clearly definable offence against so-called 'feudal law', but rather as a politically and legally problematic category of wrongdoing.

There were differences of emphasis between lesbian and gay theory, and two major strands of thinking within lesbian theory itself. The first of these is lesbian feminism, which is understood by seeing it initially in the context of its own origins from within feminism. The second is designated as libertarian lesbianism seen as part of the field of 'queer theory' or 'queer studies'. This chapter discusses the nature and development of the thinking designated as lesbian feminism and libertarian lesbianism. It describes the critical activities of queer theorists and presents an example of this kind of criticism taken from the chapter 'The love poetry of the First World War' in Mark Lilly's Gay Men's Literature in the Twentieth Century. A STOP and THINK section provides the reader with some ‘hands-on’ experience with the subject discussed.

Chapter 9 provides a background to the formation of Yes Equality, a group dedicated to establishing marriage for same-sex couples. This chapter continues with the announcement of the referendum on marriage equality and an assessment of the campaign in the immediate run-up to the referendum.

The British Empire reached the peak of its power and influence during the Victorian era, presenting opportunities to a wide spectrum of entrepreneurs, missionaries, government administrators and adventurers. This chapter examines how disabled white Britons fitted into the imperial matrix by exploring the life histories of three deaf educators and social reformers, John Kitto, George Tait and Jane Groom. As the lives of these three individuals intersected with the workings of the British Empire, this provides an opportunity to consider the intersection between disability and colonialism. As Cleall demonstrates, scholars of disability have often used the language of colonialism to evoke the exclusion, discrimination and subjugation of disabled people by society, following a similar pattern to that used in issues of race.

Sir Richard Abberbury of Donnington and his son, also Sir Richard, play a minor but instructive part in the history of Richard II's reign. Sir Richard le filz became a well-established figure in English political life by the 1390s, known as an acute diplomat and a trusted servant of the duke of Lancaster. Sir Richard le filz did not turn the high position he had held in John of Gaunt's esteem to greater advantage after 1399, especially in view of the importance of old Lancastrian servants in Henry IV's establishment. Within twelve months of old Sir Richard's death, Richard II was deposed and dead; John of Gaunt was dead; his son, Henry of Derby, was King of England. The Abberburys' decline has less to do with 'unskillfulness' than with the scale of priorities by which the later medieval gentry conducted their lives.

Though structuralism began in the 1950s and 1960s, it has its roots in the thinking of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure was a key figure in the development of modern approaches to language study. He emphasised that the meanings given to words are purely arbitrary, and that these meanings are maintained by convention only. This chapter examines Saussure's pronouncements about linguistic structures which the structuralists later found so interesting. The other major figure in the early phase of structuralism was Roland Barthes, who applied the structuralist method to the general field of modern culture. The chapter lists the activities of structuralist critics and provides examples on the methods of literary analysis described and demonstrated in Barthes's book S/Z. STOP and THINK sections in the chapter provide the reader with some ‘hands-on’ experience with the subject discussed.

An overview of the Constitutional Convention which was established to ensure ‘participative democracy’ in considering changes to the Irish Constitution. This chapter examines how in April 2013 delegates overwhelmingly called for a constitutional change to extend civil marriage to same-sex couples and, significantly, to include amendments for parental rights in this regard. The chapter also describes the beginning of a great controversy, popularly referred to as ‘Pantigate’, which placed the issue of marriage equality centre stage in an open debate about homophobia.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The main thrust of this book is that age formed an essential part of a person's identity in late medieval Europe. It discusses theories of ageing in a range of medieval literature, demonstrating the tendency to group people together on the basis of age and to employ terms to denote childhood, adolescence, youth, adulthood and old age. It is the case that medieval society may have understood these terms to refer to different chronological ages or reflect different qualities from those understood by modern society. The book also considers the changing opportunities and possibilities for people as they progressed through life. A number of studies have drawn attention to divergences between northern and southern Europe in terms of marriage patterns, family formation, opportunities for women and attitudes towards death and its rituals.

The conclusion argues for the importance of the cinephile approach to cinema history and how it is not a self-indulgence but essential for understanding the work of the actors. The book ends with an illustration of how an actor’s work can, and does, create its own mythology.