This chapter represents a response to the argument about the role of party politics in debates about the British empire, and identifies areas of disagreement relating to the political, economic and intellectual culture that went into shaping imperial expansion. This involves recognising that disagreements existed, while challenging the significance of party alignments, reflecting on the wider historiography and introducing comparisons with the Spanish empire; it also involves expressing some degree of sympathy on wider issues of how to approach the study of empire.

Richard North’s chapter argues that the Old English verse saint’s life Andreas (on the apostle St Andrew) appropriates the secular epic poem Beowulf for mock-epic purposes, turning knowledge of Beowulf, a poem which by implication must have been famous in Anglo-Saxon England, to a new Christian purpose. Andreas is seen to offer through its mock-epic style a satirical commentary on the heathen nostalgia of Beowulf. In Andreas knowledge of secular literature and its version of the past is astutely re-appropriated for religious purposes, being absorbed into and transcended by a Christian celebration of the true heroism of the saint. This chapter adds a new dimension to the understanding of Anglo-Saxon literary history and the place of secular tradition within it.

This chapter contextualizes Brazil's shift in identity to 'global trader', exploring what this has meant in terms of trade policy on a regional, South-South and global level. At the core of the story is the shift from inward-orientation to export-oriented development that was initiated during the short-lived Fernando de Collor de Mello presidency, which in turn helped drive a deeper internationalization of the Brazilian economy. The critical inflection point for reconstituting Brazil's trade policy is the commencement of the Lula presidency in 2003, which explicitly recognized the changes not only in the Brazilian economy, but also in the international agricultural trade landscape. A series of summits Brazil organized between South America and Africa as well as the Arab world kept the same implicit logic of trade expansion found in efforts to move Cardoso's infrastructure integration programme to deeper economic and political cooperation.

This chapter considers definitions of illicit behaviour and bastardy during this period, and the ways in which they shape the sources available to us. It will commence with the theoretical legal position expounded by both ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions. It describes the debates around annulment, separation and divorce. It considers the formal mechanisms through which behaviour was categorised and responded to, especially in the church courts, the ways these were extended in the sixteenth century, and the patterns of enforcement during the period, especially in the intense period of activity of the northern High Commission in the 1570s.

The British invaded Ethiopia when Emperor Theodore held several Englishmen captive in disgruntlement at lack of British support for the Christian monarch's defence of his country against Muslim neighbours. The rehabilitation of banished rulers provides a useful entry-point for this chapter on kings from black Africa, who, vilified and toppled by Europeans, now figure on the honour roll of African statesmen. Béhanzin is enshrined in the pantheon of indigenous rulers and resisters to European colonialism, and even the French pay tribute to his state-building and the achievements of his court. Most cases of African exile came during the early decades of colonisation, though the weapon of deposition continued to be deployed well into the post-First World War period, and it remained in the arsenal even as African nations approached independence.

This chapter analyses how the image of Europe has been taught and studied at Egyptian universities. Drawing upon Edward Said’s seminal book Orientalism and Egyptian philosopher Hassan Hanafi’s replica Occidentalism, we argue that a kind of ‘EUrientalism’ has taken hold at Egyptian universities. EUrientalism is understood here as a self-reflective paradigm of generating knowledge through a dialogic and interactive partnership between European and Egyptian universities, meant to foster a transformative educational system that reduces existing stereotypes. The chapter examines how the idea(l) of EUrientalism has triggered partnership endeavours between European and Egyptian universities. These include Cairo University’s dedicated ‘Euro-Mediterranean Studies Programme’ which we analyse through a specific focus on curricula from modules in Political Science and Modern History. Nevertheless, several overlapping constraints result in the persistence of an image of Europe as admired friend as well as rejected foe: a lack of critical examination of the Self(s), growing populist discourses in Egypt and Europe, and the narrow confines of academia in authoritarian Egypt.

Brazilian foreign policy is primarily concerned with questions of structural power, not relative power. The difference that comes with the Brazilian focus on structural power considerations over relative power preoccupations is one of tone and conduct. The focus on structural power over relative power also allows a broader understanding of how a generalized national agenda might be advanced through non-state instruments. Central to Brazil's foreign policy since at least the early 1990s has been the expansion of South-South linkages to create new, alternative pathways to development, security and political consolidation. One suggestion prevalent in the literature is that Brazilian foreign policy collapsed during the Dilma years. The expertise and professionalism at Itamaraty proved crucial during the Dilma years for keeping the foreign policy project in motion despite presidential disinterest.

This chapter draws fully on the range of surviving sources and responds critically to the growing scholarship on the Tudor nobility and gentry to contextualise Bess within her time. Traces her four marriages (including the financial difficulties that beset the first two and the breakdown of the fourth), her role in guarding Mary, Queen of Scots, and her building activity. What marks Bess out is her extraordinary social mobility, rising from minor gentlewoman of limited prospects to immensely wealthy and powerful countess, that and the fact we know more about her than almost any other woman of her time. Her marriages, her buildings, her possessions and her letter-writing are all fascinating, but must be read within the context of other Tudor nobles and gentry (men as well as women), otherwise Bess will continue to be regarded as something of an exception – something of an aberration, even – and that would diminish her remarkable achievements.

This part explores the developments of television throughout the 1970s and the increasing popularity of the miniseries format. As big cinematic epics went into decline, representation of the ancient world appeared in other forms and increasingly on television screens, for example in comedies such as Up Pompeii!. More significantly, ground-breaking new shows like I, Claudius, one of the case studies in this part, developed key aesthetic aspects of TV antiquity and pushed the boundaries of what was permissible with regard to screening sex and violence. This and other shows also led to increasing concerns over censorship and media regulation during this decade. Like I, Claudius, the lesser-known The Eagle of the Ninth (1977), the subject of this part’s second case study, strongly reflected contemporaneous concerns over empires, home and abroad, and ethical issue relating to conquest and occupation.

In Shakespeare’s England, ghosts were problematic, associated with Catholic ideas about Purgatory. However, ghosts proved popular on the early modern stage, and in Shakespeare’s plays the throne is a particularly haunted space. In Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Richard III and Macbeth, political leaders encounter ghosts who had held power themselves or who were murdered as part of the brutal process of obtaining political power. Ghosts not only unsettle the boundary between life and death in these plays but also question monarchs’ positions, undermining assumptions of legitimacy. Pursuant to the theory of the king’s two bodies, the spirit of divine kingship passed seamlessly to the next legitimate ruler, but in cases of rupture, where power did not legitimately pass, the spirit of ‘authentic’ monarchy could be left disembodied, thus constituting a spectral presence displaced from the political body. Shakespeare was intensely interested in cases of rupture. This chapter explores the ghosts in these four plays, examining how they haunt political spaces, and resonate with the additional spectre, the second ghost, of the disembodied, legitimate ruler.