This chapter considers the role of British naval suppression in the production of the image of West Africa. The transformation of the slave trade from something that was central to Britain's relationship with Africa and from which it profited, into something that it was seeking to end, was central to this process. According to Forbes, the British had signed an anti-slave trade treaty with King Fano-Toro in 1846. Among all the anecdotes and general observations about Africa, some suppressionist writers did seek to probe deeper into the societies they encountered to provide more detailed understanding of historical events, political structures and economic systems. Following the publicity elicited by an intense pamphlet war, a Royal Commission was sent to investigate the healthness of Britain's West African settlements, including Sierra Leone and the Gambia.

This chapter outlines the key themes of the book: the importance of Africa, decolonisation and the legacies of empire in shaping the fortunes of the small and middling powers in the Cold War; and the special role Africa played in defining Ireland's identity. It argues for a more nuanced reading of the Cold War narrative, to take account of the close inter-relationship between national histories, cultures, social structures and foreign policy. It introduces the ‘fire brigade’ states – Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway and Sweden, a group of small and middling powers valued by the international community for their support of collective security and the primacy of international law – and their contribution (collectively and individually) to a changing international system. It explores the manner in which Africa defined the parameters in which they operated. And it examines the special place of Africa in the Irish consciousness.

From the creation of Châlons Camp to military environmentalist policies in the twenty-first century, the French and other militaries have mobilized nature within France to prepare for and wage war. Although war and militarization are profoundly human activities, they can only take place through the active and at times difficult mobilization of nature. Dead animals, flattened forests, ruined fields, polluted sites, and lost homelands need to be added to war and militarization's impact on France. At Suippes Camp, the civilian presence within the militarized environment is hidden but largely consensual. Beyond military-civilian cooperation over hunting and the management of the Natura 2000 site, Suippes Camp is a site of memorialization. In the 1970s and 1980s Abbé Kuhn, priest of Sommepy-Tahure, produced a number of publications on the ruined villages, outlining their 'calm and peaceful' pre-1914 history and subsequent destruction during the war.

This chapter discusses the influence of Freethought in the development of first-wave feminism, focusing on debates over marriage, birth control and sexual morality. It examines the tensions between feminism, Free Love and Freethought while showing that, despite these tensions, Freethought provided an intellectual framework in which it was possible to envisage a more radical transformation of heterosexual relations than the rest of the women's movement was willing to imagine. The Freethought renunciation of Christianity necessarily entailed a rejection of the moral authority of the Church, particularly its role in legitimising sexual relations. Secularists were therefore required to find a new basis for morality.

The paradox of the wigga, the white suburban teenager who mimics black speech and style, is that he or she cannot help drawing attention to an incongruous whiteness. The wigga's mimicry circulates G thang, the ambivalent nature of which is nicely encapsulated by the term 'nigga' itself. Expropriated from the term 'nigger', that signifier obscenely loaded with hatred and suffering, nigga is an ambivalent signifier of affirmative negativity. The nigga has no essence even though he resides as the x-essence of the white neoliberal supercapitalism. While the x-essence of gangsta is traceable in the marketing strategies of companies like Nike, the heterogeneity of the figure cannot be utilised or controlled in any unproblematic way. The 'sovereignty' that is attributed to African-American culture should not be understood in the sense of that term when it refers to the sovereignty of states as defined by the international law.

The later Stuart church inherited many of the problems that had been faced by its antecedents at institutional, social, and intellectual levels, but was also rocked by several new and profound challenges. The predominance of the Church of England was shaken by the Toleration Act, which removed the option of persecuting dissenters for their religious beliefs. The apparent amnesia or ingratitude of many clerics after the legal re-establishment of the church in 1662 was the product of the consequences of the schism that ensued from it. Between 1660 and 1662 Charles II's efforts to implement his deeply held desire for 'a liberty to tender consciences' were frustrated and a narrowly based, intolerant church was established by law. In the parliament of 1685, the bishops had spoken out against James II's efforts to maintain a significant standing army that contained Catholic officers.

This chapter, along with chapters six and seven, explores the emergence and consolidation of co-ordinated international opposition to apartheid and minority rule in southern Africa in the 1950s and 1960s. It begins by describing an important shift in Irish rhetoric: from the anti-British, pro-Boer nationalism of the early twentieth century to the anti-colonial, pro-African discourse employed at the UN and beyond. In diplomatic terms that approach was an obvious extension of ‘fire brigade’ support for decolonisation. Yet the emergence of a strong anti-apartheid movement across northern Europe and North America in the 1960s changed the playing field completely. The second half of this chapter paints an image of that emerging coalition, viewing the creation of the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement in 1964 as part of an international campaign to match local reaction with transnational action.