This chapter examines the ideas of C. P. Snow (The Two Cultures), Richard Dawkins (genetic determinism), Craig Venter (‘creating’ life) and Denis Noble (principle of biological relativity). The theory of biological relativity says there is no hierarchy in biological systems and no level in its organisation that has precedence over any other level. This denial of a hierarchy is the denial of determinism, including, in particular, genetic determinism. From the perspective of the modern plagues, the principle insists that there is no single solution available to ending those plagues.

Concurrent with the top-down change already described, the Health Society requires bottom-up change in every community. Such change is required because the modern plagues spread through social networks that operate predominantly at the community level. The authors propose that the starting point for this change is through reconfiguring the NHS Health Check. Reconfiguration includes the introduction of Health Society professionals and Health Society Champions. Evaluation of the development of the Health Society should include a target for improved healthspan. Because this is an exercise in experimental epidemiology (not merely in today’s convention of observational epidemiology), a pilot Health Society should be tested. Suitable locations for this pilot (including Greater Manchester) are identified.

Chapters 5 and 6 are two sides of the same coin. Together they explore the relationships between the state, the government, the press and the people, and uni what could and could not be said, by whom, where and in which format. In 1985 retired scientific officer at MI5, Peter Wright, tried to supplement his pension by publishing his memoir, including his investigations into KGB infiltration of MI5 itself. The book was co-written/ghost written by Paul Greengrass and embroiled Wright, his publishers, the British press and government in a lengthy, expensive and embarrassing blood letting. Throughout the eighties, stories about spies proliferated in all their possible forms – in toys and boardgames, cartoons, films, documentary and the spy novel. The language of espionage is that of fiction; spies’ i stories are ‘legends’. The language used to describe Spycatcher, and the secret service more broadly, fed from fiction and entertainment. But Wright’s book raised some uncomfortable questions about changing Cold War relations. The government tried everything it could to stop Wright’s book being published, read and written or talked about. It was not the disclosures themselves that tipped the balance of secrecy, security and liberty. It was the government’s reaction to Wright that showed the British government’s ‘predilection for expediency and secrecy’. Beyond the UK, the ban, and the ban on publishing articles about the ban, draw faultiness through Britain’s global reach, past and present.

The British took control of the Cape of Good Hope in 1795, after over a century of occupation by the agents and settlers of the Dutch VOC. Originally, the VOC never considered the Cape to be more than a refreshment station to service ships on their way to and from the VOC empire in the East, but even a limited number of settlers sufficed to transform the neglected area into a contested space of imperial competition. This chapter challenges established perceptions considering this place as a negligible site of early modern colonisation, to highlight the processes and conflicts that led to the development of the region by an array of European imperial agents, all part of the history and make-up of the region’s history, memory and culture. The chapter addresses the inconsistencies of VOC rule in the management of wave after wave of immigrant settlers of Dutch and French origin intent on residing permanently in the area and making the best of limited agricultural opportunities. It demonstrates the impact of various stakeholders to the land, including indigenous people, who actively resisted settler expansion. It points to the importance of settler demands and settler autonomy in the stabilisation and expansion of European domination in the region, in spite of inconsistent and sometimes contradictory imperial policies of Dutch and British trading interests and companies. The latter viewed the Cape as a strategic location in the global competition for access to and domination over trading routes connecting Europe to the riches of Asia.

Why are there are so many couples looking for help with their relationships in the first place? Why is it so hard to make long-term, romantic partnerships work, much less flourish, in the modern world? This chapter argues that at least part of the explanation may lie in a disconnect between our ancient, evolved dispositions for mating and attachment and the social and physical environment we have created for ourselves through culture and technology. In short, our capacity for love did not evolve to support life-long relationships in contemporary societies. Rather, it evolved to support the reproductive success of our ancestors under social conditions that, for the most part, no longer exist. In addition, the place of love in marriage—and the institution of marriage itself—has undergone a whiplash-inducing transformation over the past 200 years, leaving us ill-equipped to fit the pieces all together. Might there be a role for chemical treatments in strengthening the bonds of attachment directly?

As the introduction began by challenging the birthdate and place of Italian graphic design, so the conclusion reaffirms that its supposed ‘birth’ was in fact a long and uneven process that bridged the war years and never reached a definitive and uncontested outcome. After briefly summarising the content of the book, the conclusion pulls together the arguments made in the preceding chapters in order to describe how the articulation of graphic design practice in Milan can be understood as resulting from a complex relationship of factors. It shows how semantic shifts were evidence of changes in the way graphic design practice was being understood in Milan between the 1930s and 1960s. It expresses the book’s contribution to modernism studies through an emphasis on local networks and power relations, a close reading of primary sources, and a focus on design practice, education and mediation. Finally, the conclusion affirms the richness of using a graphic design-based approach to think about Italian design and culture, as well as the potential of applying this approach to other geographies and historical periods. More contemporary perspectives on the topic of graphic design practice in Italy are also offered to demonstrate that professionalisation is an open-ended process.

This chapter charts Saffa Mir’s journey experiencing racism from her schooling until her employment within the legal sector. Through this period she becomes an activist fighting racism and prejudice, but questions at what point she realised that her call for freedom and liberty for all would be met with resistance from those who said they also wanted freedom and liberty for all, but which didn’t include those who looked like her. During her university education she would sit in her counter-terrorism lecture not daring to be outspoken for fear of being reported to Prevent. A fear which is a reality for many around the UK, a fear which led to her co-founding Preventing Prevent at Manchester, a campaign to resist its implementation. A fear which awakened her as an activist and to take a stand against this discriminatory piece of legislation. During her term as vice-president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies she would lead on the nation-wide campaigning on Students Not Suspects and Islamophobia Awareness Month in the hope of ensuring young people of colour, especially Muslims, had the language, the tools and the capacity to build coalitions to campaign against the securitisation of the academy. Mir’s chapter presents how, despite being a subject of racist profiling policies, she was able to actively resist against the policies that profiled and racialised communities of colour.

Why might tensions arise between love and well-being? Sometimes, there can be painful inconsistencies between our conscious values surrounding love, the prevailing cultural norms or social scripts for romantic partnerships in our environment, our subjective experiences of attachment and desire, and our underlying biological natures. Which of these dimensions can be altered? Which of them should be altered, and under what conditions? Many societies hold up monogamous marriage as the ideal for committed relationships. Is this ideal consistent with human nature? This chapter argues that there is no single answer to that question: natural variation among individuals and at the level of the species confounds such one-size-fits-all thinking. Accordingly, if biological interventions—in addition to psychosocial ones—will ever help love and happiness coincide, it will depend on the specific issues facing a given couple.

Based on an interview between comedian Aamer Rahman and Asim Qureshi, Rahman thinks through what it means to be a comedian in an environment that has very fixed expectations on the narrative the industry is comfortable with. For him, his art has never been about making people laugh for the sake of being funny, but rather as a tool that sits at the heart of this political activism. Through the interview, Rahman reflects on the multitude of influences that have developed his thinking, from his religion to Black comedians like Dave Chapelle and his influences from within the world of music. The final contribution to the volume is a call against representation politics devoid of any ethical position, that the representation by and of people of colour should never be a mere performance but must use its platform to subvert society’s expectations. By being politically overt, Rahman has centred the needs of his own communities above any desire for public approval and adoration – demonstrating a lived praxis of resistance.

The case is made that the high prevalence of common long-term conditions justifies describing them as modern plagues. The symptoms of the principal conditions are described. These conditions are considered in the context of their impact on curtailing healthspan - the age at which people cometo the end of their fully healthy lives. While medical healthcare has extended lifespan, the curtailment of healthspan results in years or decades of disability. This gap between healthspan and lifespan diminishes as deprivation declines.