This chapter introduces violence as a tension in education studies with iconoclasm and religious persecution as a guiding force in educational conformity. Moments of invasion, religious destruction, and dogmatic imposition, and foreign attacks on Mesoamerica’s multidimensional archives set a darker tone for the book. Weighty theories highlight violence and sudden change as hindering coherent local learning modalities. This is especially shown in discussions on place as a factor in power-knowledge construction and destruction, highlighting moments of ‘placebreaking’, or the direct assault on historic sites to remove community attachments, that Nahuas faced in military campaigns. Flexible, adaptive placemaking and ethnogenesis after a moment of placebreaking are offered as ways that newly Christian communities reconciled a history of violence. Regionally, it focuses on the religious and educational capital of the Puebla-Tlaxcala valley and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl. This was the earliest assault upon an example of a Mesoamerican learningscape, and this event is reframed to include differing Indigenous visions of destroying a place of learning. The thought is carried forward into the period of early Christianization, during which Motolinía is identified as an agent of compelled placebreaking but also a documentarian of the inability to complete the spiritual conquest.

Soon after the death of Ahmose II, the Persian Empire, which had been increasing in size and power for a number of years, invaded Egypt. Ahmose’s son, Psamtek III, the new ruler of Egypt, fought the Persians, under Cambyses II at Pellusium. The Egyptians retreated and following a siege at Memphis were defeated and Psamtek was taken prisoner. Cambyses conquered Egypt, sent expeditions to the oases, campaigned in Nubia and consolidated his control over the whole country. The celebrated statue of Udjahorresnet, an Egyptian naval officer and dignitary, who served under both Ahmose II and Cambyses II, provides information for this period. Psamtek III reputedly committed suicide following a failed attempt to foment a rebellion against the Persian occupiers. In 525 BC Cambyses was declared King of Egypt and incorporated Egypt into the Persian empire. The Saite Period was over and Egypt was an occupied country.

This chapter outlines the environmental characteristics of air power, particularly the challenges of operating in the air environment. It introduces readers to the way in which modern air operations began during the First World War and the subsequent theorising by a number of key figures who focused upon the strategic aspects of air power and the belief that air power could bring about rapid and decisive victories. These theories are contrasted with the events of the Second World War, which led not to independent air power but the further illustration of the importance of air power as a whole, operating both independently of surface forces and alongside them as a precursor to discussion in Chapter 11.

This chapter examines James Shirley’s Caroline tragedy The Traitor and its engagement with its political, social and theatrical contexts. It discusses the ways in which the corruption and uncontrolled cupidity of the tyrannous Duke, and the desire for power of his court favourite Lorenzo, disrupt such stabilising social and political bonds as marriage, friendship, family, hospitality and allegiance, and raise uncontrolled passions and conflicts of allegiance in his subjects. This disruption and its dangers are read in the light of Caroline political arguments over prerogative power, law, liberties of the subject and Catholic allegiance. Reading the play intertextually, the chapter shows how Shirley’s revisioning of earlier revenge drama and his engagement with the tropes of Caroline tragicomedy emphasise the tragic futility of Amidea’s death, and highlight the dangers to social structures, subjects and monarchs themselves of failing to acknowledge and contain passions and take opportunities for reasoned reform.

Bangladesh became an independent country in 1971. Its territory was formed of the former East Pakistan (1947–1971). Consisting mainly of the well-watered and alluvial eastern Bengal delta, Bangladesh’s economy was mainly agricultural in 1971. Although such large-scale industries as textiles and tea and such small-scale industries as handloom weaving existed on an extensive scale, an overwhelmingly large proportion of the employed workforce was engaged in agriculture. High population density, a low land–person ratio and rural poverty made diversification of the economic base an acute necessity and a challenge. A significant transformation did happen through the Green Revolution, an effective social policy that delivered a demographic transition, and a few large-scale industries forged ahead. The chapter shows how market forces, global influences and state policies combined to shape that process.

Through the metaphor of Nordic strawberries (jordbær), this opening reflection introduces core themes of Nordic capitalism. The modest yet consistently high-quality berries serve as a symbol for Nordic societies’ approach to shared prosperity – not luxury for the few, but reliable well-being for the many. The reflection illustrates how thoughtful democratic design and efficient capitalism can create systems where good things are broadly accessible, which in aggregate produces something exceptional at the societal level, setting up the book’s exploration of Nordic capitalism’s distinctive features.

This chapter offers a global perspective on Indian education in the colonial era. Indian literacy was significantly below Western Europe in 1800 when adult English literacy (53%) was ten times higher than that of India (estimated to be 6%). While schooling and literacy increased between 1870 and 1940, improvement in India was small compared to the rest of the world. Low income, low fiscal capacity and being a colony all constrained colonial India’s ability to expand mass education, along with norms, for example, that undervalued female education.

This chapter argues that the future form of land warfare is far from certain. For some, the future is net-centric warfare, an information and technology-focused view on the changing character of warfare. To meet the demands posed by the changing character of conflict, armies must embrace the theme of multi-domain operations. However, history suggests that in the future multiple forms of land warfare are likely to coexist because the practice of land warfare is shaped by many different political, economic, social and cultural contexts.

In the past decade, the geographical and conceptual breadth of sustainability transitions has expanded, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Increasing attention is paid to social, economic and environmental issues in the ‘Global South’, where decades of colonial rule have shaped infrastructures and institutions. In recent years, the literature has taken a ‘decolonial turn’, underlining the risks of reproducing colonial ways of control, power, privilege, domination, and disassociation with Nature. This chapter reviews this emerging literature, articulating why and how contexts differ between Global South and North and how sustainability transitions theories could be more meaningful in Global South contexts. The central research question is: how could we analyse and enact sustainability transitions in the Global South in a way that transcends historical challenges of colonial modernity and undesired development while pursuing just futures? The review is organised around five themes: niches, regimes, change, justice, and knowledge diversity. The chapter proposes ways to go deeper into these themes in setting a research agenda for future sustainability transitions in the Global South.