Israel’s 1967 military triumph over the Arab states was widely applauded in the West but its military occupation of Arab land beyond the 1949 cease-fire line brought its army into direct confrontation with the Palestinian civilian population. The uneven struggle aroused the interest of the new left, a movement inspired in part by anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, which saw the Israel/Palestine conflict in a different light from the traditional left. The chapter reviews the debates which informed this movement’s ideas on Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories. Political groups and intellectuals influenced by Marxism increasingly linked Israeli policy and military conquest to Western imperialism and characterised the Palestinian nationalist moment as part of the developing world’s anti-colonial struggle.

This chapter brings together work on rural landscapes and identity, the lives of young people in rural areas and the representation of rural youth in fiction to construct a critical analysis of Tim Roth's film The War Zone. Set in north Devon, the film reconfigures the rural as aberrant, heteroclitic and sinister in several linked ways. First, it challenges the lay discourse which positions the countryside as a safe place in which to grow up by portraying it as alienating and marginalising. Second, it resists the popular image of rural sexuality as playful, innocent fumbling in a hayloft by foregrounding Tom Holland and Jessie's exploration of their (deviant) sexual identities. Finally, by using as its setting the bleak landscape of north Devon, it envisions a contemporary alternative to a historically constituted version of rural England as a green and pleasant land.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the responsibilities of Irish poor law guardians had expanded to encompass a wide range of welfare services from poor relief and hospital care to social housing. Social groups that had previously been marginalised from political activity, such as labourers and women, were expected to be passive rather than active citizens, following the lead of their male, middle-class colleagues. Throughout the nineteenth century, national politics overshadowed the conduct of local affairs. Control of local administration could never be seen as a non-political issue as long as central government was directed from outside the country. Government was encroaching on areas that it had previously avoided, and there was a growing recognition that poverty and under-development in Ireland required the active intervention of the state. Criticism of the poor law system tended to be interpreted in political terms.

This chapter explores The Screens, Jean Genet's last play, as a historical event. It clarifies the relationship between aesthetic and political events by showing how the 'battle of The Screens' was caused by Genet's 'oblique attempt to provoke a politics' by 'illuminating the void'. The main thrust of Genet's attack in The Screens was directed against the colons and the Army, both of whom, are represented as grotesque tyrants, devoid of sympathy and intelligence. The difficult situation facing the French government was exacerbated by the attitude of the French Army who had been humbled at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. In common with the pieds noirs who regarded Algeria as a part of France and themselves as proper French citizens, the Army was determined to keep Algérie française at all costs, and saw the conflict as a chance for winning military pride.

It is also possible to investigate the morphology of the Minoan language—that is, its grammar and methods of word-formation—by studying Linear A. For example, many words in the script occur multiple times, but with different endings (suffixes) or beginnings (prefixes), thus yielding hints about the nature of Minoan grammar. Chapter 4 systematically addresses the morphology of Minoan through a refinement of a statistical method of analysis devised by David W. Packard in the 1970s. His method was designed to help determine the spoken values of some signs whose values were not yet known back then, whereas my refinement is designed to determine which syllabic signs are most likely to be indicating the presence of Minoan prefixes and suffixes at the beginnings and ends of words. This process isolates six signs—two very common at the beginnings of words, and four very common at the ends of them—that are highly likely to be grammatical prefixes and suffixes, including one suffix in particular that is highly likely to denote a genitive (showing possession), an ablative (showing origin), or a toponymic adjective (such as the “-ish” in “British,” again showing origin).

Chapter 2 begins Part I, “Linguistic Analysis of Linear A,” which consists of Chapters 2 to 5. As the main key to deciphering a script is identifying the language behind it, this chapter strives to present evidence of various types as to the character of the language behind Linear A. As this was the script of the Minoans on Crete in the 2nd millennium BCE, the chapter first outlines the linguistic landscape in the eastern Mediterranean and Near East at this time, mapping out the features of each ancient language in this region along six different parameters: (1) which language family it belongs to; (2) whether its nouns and verbs are inflected with one set of affixes (prefixes/suffixes), or more than one; (3) whether it is inflected with affixes alone, or also in some other way; (4) whether its affixes can serve multiple purposes, or just one; (5) whether its affixes are mostly prefixes or suffixes; and (6) the default order in which the subject, verb, and object occur in its sentences. Other evidence for the nature of the Minoan language is then discussed, including archaeogenetic and archaeological evidence for the origin of the Minoans, and evidence from documents in other cultures.

This chapter focuses on the interviewees' attitudes and experiences regarding two phenomena: electoral politics and alternative modes of political participation, such as in civil society associations. While these are two sites for the possible 'passage' from individual to collective subjectivities, they are not the only ones. One of the questions developed in interviews with young people of North African origin related to revendications, or demands. Interviewees were asked if they had any social or political claims and how they positioned themselves socially and culturally in relation to these. A high proportion of interviewees are involved in associations either as volunteers, employees, or as 'users' of the services associations may provide. Associations can be seen as an alternative, more diffuse mode of political participation which may or may not reflect the emergence of a collective actor or movement in the Tourainian sense of the challenging of unequal power relations.

This chapter begins with an outline of the state of Catholicism in Scotland during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a period when persecution, priest shortages and incessant financial hardship plagued church development. It highlights the cultural tension operative between an indigenous Scots clergy and many of the Irish missionaries who, through their common language and shared customs, had formed strong and definitive connections with pockets of faithful in the remote Highlands. The chapter examines the evolution of Catholic relief, the process of repealing the legislation that imposed numerous civil disabilities and restrictions upon Catholics and dissenters, between 1779 and 1829. Collective assertions were welcomed by a Catholic leadership whose growing confidence was helping them to capitalise upon the situation and agitate more publicly for emancipation and social integration.

Chapter 8 provides a comprehensive roadmap for enabling a societal shift toward a sustainable and equitable future. Central to the argument is the need to repurpose the “invisible hand”—a metaphor for systemic incentives that currently reinforce unsustainable behaviors—into a helping force that promotes global well-being. The chapter proposes change at both the individual and institutional levels, encouraging citizens to act within their roles—whether as voters, educators, business leaders, artists, or scientists—to nudge society toward a tipping point. The chapter explores innovative governance models such as an autonomous global climate board, and even suggests taxing extreme wealth or implementing a universal basic income to mitigate inequality and systemic stress. Education and science must shift focus toward actionable, hopeful narratives, while business and media must align incentives with public good. Ultimately, the chapter frames global transformation as possible—if society can collectively shift its worldview and reshape the systems guiding human behavior.