This chapter focuses on the history of siege warfare in ancient Greece. The techniques of siege warfare began to develop once states such as Athens and Syracuse acquired the institutional, economic and logistical structures to prosecute sieges to their conclusion. In the fifth century, Athens became apparently the foremost exponent of siege warfare in the Aegean region, capable of removing Persian garrisons from bases across the Aegean and beyond, such as the strongly fortified Sestus and Eion. After the Peloponnesian War, the techniques and technology of siege warfare continued to develop and the fourth century saw the first systematic use by the Greeks of mechanised projectile launchers.

The period between 1870 and 1918 witnessed intense intellectual and political activity around alcohol addiction. Many writers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw the drink question as a straight conflict between defining habitual drunkenness as vice or disease. In truth, however, it could never be fully accounted for as either. The late nineteenth century certainly witnessed a marked increase in the use, and influence, of disease-based models of alcohol addiction. The disease model of alcohol addiction first entered the public domain in Britain through the introduction of legislation which allowed for the creation of quasi-penal institutions to which ‘habitual drunkards’ could be committed for periods of restraint and rehabilitation. The Liberal MP for Bath, Donald Dalrymple, campaigned for the creation of asylums for the treatment of habitual drunkards, leading to the eventual passing of the Habitual Drunkards Act in 1879. This chapter discusses inebriety, medicine and law, retreat and rehabilitation of habitual drunkards, the inebriate asylum movement, differences between inebriety and dipsomania, drink and criminal liability, inebriety and degeneration, and the decline of medical temperance.

This chapter describes battlefield engagements in ancient Greece during the age of the hoplites. Many battles appear to have been fought on relatively level plains that allowed the deployment of the opposing armies. The nature of hoplite combat is controversial because most explanations have been based partly on evaluations of the individual manoeuvrability of the hoplite and the density of the phalanx, as well as debate about the nature of the ōthismos. After the battle, the victors are sometimes too exhausted and had taken too many casualties to follow up an enemy withdrawal. This chapter suggests that military engagements fought by the Greeks were often limited only by the practicalities of organising and motivating large groups of men to realise their capacity for destruction.

This chapter introduces Iain Sinclair, who is a good example of the figure of the visionary outsider, and the author of known works such as Edge of the Orison and Lud Heat. It first presents a general description of Sinclair and his works, and then turns to his change of focus that corresponds to what has been called as the ‘spatial turn’ in social and critical theory. It shows that walking is Sinclair's practice of studying the spatial configurations modern life. Here, the chapter focuses on flâneur and the practice of ‘tactical’ walking.

Unionism remained deeply divided over issues of social service expenditure and the adoption of welfare legislation emanating from Westminster. It recognised the danger of the labour interests harboured by a significant portion of working-class Protestants and set about meeting these by establishing its own trade union organisation. Home Rule had a lasting legacy for the Irish Labour movement. The 1930s presented a range of unique challenges and opportunities for the Northern Ireland Labour movement and it soon became exercised by developments on the political front. The brittle rigidity of inter-ethnic co-operation had thrown into sharp relief the Northern Ireland Labour Party's (NILP) obvious difficulty in bridging the divide at the political level. The transition from war to peace threatened to upset the balance of power within the Unionist Party. The Labour movement was perhaps the power of the militant trade unionist wing of the Labour movement.

This chapter explores the building of Sweden's reputation as a successful small democracy. Sweden's international reputation as a 'harmonious democracy' in Herbert Tingsten's phrase has been indebted in no small measure to the commentaries of foreign journalists and academics. The chapter seeks to identify the main characteristics of the 'Swedish model' in its heyday in the 1960s. In the 1960s, Finland deviated in several essentials from the 'Scandinavian model'. In the heyday of the Scandinavian model of government, in the 1960s, politics and economics were essentially national in orientation. Neo-corporatism was an essential element in the Scandinavian model, especially in relation to macro-economic policy management. The chapter considers the extent of the deviation from the model elsewhere in the Nordic region. It scrutinizes whether the model has become little more than a receding memory.

The Northern Irish conflict, as an illustrative example of a wider phenomenon in transitional contexts, highlights the refusal of many post-conflict societies to face up to the legacy of political violence and suffering. This chapter provides an explanation of why dealing with the past is such a complex but necessary historical odyssey and examines the importance of communicatively rational transitional justice in Northern Ireland. This chapter refreshes the book's main thesis, addressing what the core features of effectively and critically interpreting the past in Northern Ireland are, and suggesting that the ideas outlined in this book—communicative justice—are a potential answer to the crises. In particular, this conclusion refocuses on the important contribution that the unique Habermasian model of truth recovery can make to Northern Ireland's emergence from a long period of brutal conflict.

This chapter seeks to identify and explains the varying strengths of the main party types at the polls. It emphasises four prominent features. The first two are the electoral supremacy of social democracy in Denmark, Norway and most notably Sweden, and the strength and resilience of agrarianism in Finland. The next two are the strength of the radical left in Finland and Iceland, and the merger of liberalism and conservatism as a catch-all centre-right in Iceland. Viewed from a voter's perspective, during their 'frozen' period before 1970 the Scandinavian party systems exhibited three striking features: a high level of electoral stability; generally low levels of inter-bloc mobility; and, above all, the predominance of class-based voting. The Nordic party systems have traditionally been characterised by a number of non-socialist parties seeking to protect and promote their separate identities in a crowded electoral marketplace.

Since the mid-1990s, the distinctiveness of a sociological approach to music has become increasingly apparent. This chapter notes that the primary focus of this specifically sociological ‘gaze’ is a concern with examining the various ways in which music is used in a whole range of social situations, and the consequences of this. Sociologists have, with increasing confidence, investigated the use of music by real people in real situations, thus moving away from a concern with revealing the meaning of musical texts. A sociological concern with the uses of music seeks to return such cultural objects to the social contexts in which they are produced and experienced.

This chapter discusses the engagement of the Orthodox tradition with democratic ideas, specifically assessing the issues relating to the relationship of the Orthodox Church to the State and to the nation. Orthodox churches have been able to live with a variety of political regimes. The traditionally dominant Orthodox churches tend to look to the past, focusing at the institutional level on developing close ties with the State and arguing that this was perfectly legitimate in countries where the majority of the population identified, however loosely, with the Orthodox tradition. The chapter also shows that Orthodox churches have to some degree sought special rights in terms of access to education, some degree of state funding and provision of religious support in prisons, hospitals and army units. The Orthodox churches have been hampered by the more limited range of theological and intellectual resources dealing with socio-political issues.

This chapter aims to tell the story of how the Christian churches have responded to democracy. There can be little doubt that during the ‘third wave’, the Catholic Church did become an institution which tended to support those arguing for an end to the abuse of human rights and the bringing down of authoritarian regimes. The Roman Catholic Church may not have been the primary contributor to democratic governance in Latin America. The question of the political implications of the Pentecostal explosion ties in with a second issue that relates to what has been called the ‘southernisation’ of Christianity, as the traditional ‘West’ ceases to represent the core of the ‘Christian world’. Over the last half century, Christianity has had to engage with the democratic experiment as never before.