This chapter closes the section on the complexities of colonial legislation and its enforcement with a focus on labour regulation across the Dutch Empire in the eighteenth century. Heijmans and Thiebaut build their analysis of the similarities and differences in labour legislation in Dutch colonial possessions administered by the VOC in the Indian Ocean and the WIC in the Atlantic. They fill a gap in the literature by taking an unprecedented comparative approach to the control of unfree labour across the very diverse areas included in the Dutch early modern empire. The chapter focuses on slavery as a relevant entry point into the strategies of labour control by the Dutch colonial administration at a global level. Based on locally issued by-laws compiled in ‘plakaatboeken’ from Batavia, Suriname and the Cape, Ceylon, the Guianas and Curaçao, this study shows how Dutch colonial governments regulated the behaviour and living conditions of enslaved people in their various settlements stretched over the Atlantic and the Indian Oceans in the eighteenth century. The authors demonstrate that in spite of local variations due to organisation and demography, all the colonies of the Dutch Empire spread across the globe relied on enslavement. By-laws and their limited enforcement everywhere were designed to maintain the status quo and to protect the property and prerogatives of the local dominant class, who shaped and used company law to their own advantage.

The compilation albums Now That’s What I Call Music! stand as both metaphor and evidence for a history of the 1980s imagined as a list, or montage. Seeing History as a compilation also suggests a way to understand historical evidence – illuminating the connected nature of cultural and economic contexts, of marketing, consumption, experience and memory. It is something of a cliché to describe Britain in the 1980s as a divided nation, embodied in Thatcher and exemplified by the often quoted phrase ‘there’s no such thing as society’. The introduction sets out a ‘perforated’ history in order to capture the connectivity alongside those divisions, whereby events, objects and themes are connected and can bleed into each other. The chapter sets out ten objects and concepts which can help us get to the places in between the divisions, where the different threads, themes, questions and tensions coalesce.

Anti-love drugs could easily be misused. They bring to mind disturbing parallels with sexual orientation conversion therapies and other attempts to coercively intervene in the biology of vulnerable minorities, such as LGBTQ children and adolescents. This chapter explores the dangers of making certain biotechnologies available under oppressive conditions or in societies characterized by widespread intolerance or injustice. It also questions the logic of the ‘born this way’ movement for LGBTQ rights, which is premised on the idea that sexual orientation is not a choice. If high-tech conversion therapies are ever developed that can in fact change sexual orientation, the intellectual foundation for the movement would collapse. The chapter therefore argues for the movement to be placed on stronger footing, and suggests how this might be done.

The book begins in 1933 in Milan, traditionally considered to be the birthdate and place of modern Italian graphic design. The historiographical canon is challenged, and a key premise of the book is set: professionalisation is an ongoing process of becoming and practices are in a constant state of formation and under continuous renegotiation. First, the introduction locates graphic design in Italian design history. It stresses the uneven state of the historiography and criticises its inward-looking attitude. Secondly, the introduction explains the book’s approach to design practice as a historically constructed and socially produced concept. It draws on existing literature within design history scholarship, sociology and the history of the professions. Thirdly, the introduction explains how the book fits with existing scholarship on modernism: it clarifies how it understands the term and how it seeks to complicate linear narratives and overcome a tendency towards the aesthetic perspective and a focus on design celebrities. Lastly, it suggests the book’s approach towards Italian Fascism and its attempt to explore the impact of Fascism on everyday life and practice. A brief consideration of primary sources precedes the chapter synopsis.

Histoire philosophique et politique des deux Indes, first published in 1770, was very successful in France and Europe. Its alleged author, Guillaume-Thomas Raynal, did not write it entirely but appealed to and was inspired by various authors. As a polemic and anticolonial essay, marked by the struggle against despotism, the Histoire philosophique illustrates how colonisation was viewed by some Enlightenment philosophers. It has received large scholarly attention, but my purpose is to confront what Raynal and his associates perceived of the management of French and English colonies to emphasise the differences and similarities in their thoughts. Raynal et al questioned Europeans’ motivations for settling in overseas territories and provided a political, economic and military picture of the colonies. Indeed, Raynal was one of the first critiques of imperialism and globalisation. The Histoire philosophique illustrates his negative views on colonialism and slavery, against many contemporary political economists. Raynal’s essay provides a coherent view of the distant colonies by stressing the involvement of their various agents – tradesmen, soldiers, farmers or missionaries – plus unfree labour forces. Using the comprehensive 1780 edition, this chapter questions three aspects of this study. The first is the role trading companies had in the distant colonies, and their economic activities there. It questions Raynal’s analysis of how the French and English Empires spread across Asia, the West Indies and North America. Finally, the imperial strategies of both empires in the process of colonising distant lands were marked by severe differences that Raynal puts forward, usually favouring English strategies.