This book examines the Atlantic Alliance from North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's intervention in Kosovo to the US intervention in Iraq. It is divided into two parts. The first part focuses on the ‘international context’. Stanley Sloan offers a brief historical survey of the main issues that have characterised transatlantic security relations from Kosovo to Iraq as well as a prognostication of the future of the Alliance. The second part of the book examines the evolution of foreign policies of key members of the Alliance as well as those of the so-called ‘neutrals’ since the end of the Cold War. They focus not only on the role played by each country in the Kosovo and Iraq crises but also on their views of the Alliance and their stance on some of the issues that the two interventions brought to centre stage in international politics.

In crises, we rely desperately on the truth, and there is no room for fake news or post-truth. Or at least, there shouldn’t be. But that has not been the case during the COVID-19 pandemic. This chapter will start by distinguishing between lies and post-truth, before highlighting the subversive nature of post-truth, which aims to delegitimize truth. Not even COVID-19 is immune from the toxic rhetoric of post-truth.

The number of schools grew during the 1930s, but only modestly, and there were 118 nursery schools by 1938. Nursery schools were the more expensive alternative due to the building itself, their longer hours and provision of a midday meal. Children attending nursery schools recalled a more mixed picture. Those who attended nursery schools in the late 1940s and 1950s believed that in part it was the climate of the time which imposed limitations on what their schools could achieve. The history of nursery schools and classes reveals the close connection between cost and theory in determining practice and provision. For example, the move towards offering part-time places for children was a product of the desire to cut costs in the service while enabling as many children to attend as possible, but it was also informed by the belief that young children could not tolerate long separations from their mothers.

Current debates on transatlantic relations tend to point at deep political differences on the two sides of the Atlantic ultimately grounded on different basic political values. Europe criticises the US for its unilateral and short-sighted foreign policy, while the US criticises Europe - in particular the European Union (EU) - for its military weakness and utopian view of world politics. Robert Kagan's representation of Europe as Venus and the US as Mars received a great deal of attention because it captured, though perhaps in a simplistic way, the idea of a basic difference in the worldviews of the two. This chapter deals with major values, principles and worldviews that emerge in EU foreign policy, showing how they are peculiarly interpreted in the EU context. It shows the modes and limits of translation of abstract values and principles into EU foreign policy, and ends with some concluding remarks.

This chapter offers a re-examination of P.Ital. 1 (445–6 CE), the well-known documentary dossier on the Sicilian properties of Lauricius, praepositus sacri cubiculi. More precisely, it aims to propose a new interpretation of a formula in the document 2013 ante barbarico fisco praestabatur – which, according to most scholars, starting with Theodor Mommsen, alludes to the existence of a fiscus barbaricus, a special treasury of the empire intended to collect taxes for the sustenance of non-Roman (i.e. barbarian) troops. The structure of the documents that make up the dossier, and the linguistic variations in the texts, suggest that the formula in question does not refer to a fiscus barbaricus, but rather to the fiscus, i.e. the imperial treasury, on the one hand, and to the barbaricum, i.e. the upheavals in Sicily due to the Vandal incursions in the Mediterranean, on the other.

This chapter explores the internal links between the Iranian nuclear programme, international sanctions and regional policy with the processes of neoliberalism in Iran, the Middle East and globally. By situating Iran within the geoeconomic and geopolitical policies of the United States, the European Union, China and Russia since 1990, the chapter shows how these global centres of power have utilised the Iranian nuclear programme and economic sanctions to shape neoliberalism in the region and Iran in two different periods (1990–2007 and 2008–present). Aiming to rei the agency of Iran as a regional power, the chapter also demonstrates the ways in which the different fractions of the Iranian ruling class have pursued different policies regarding the nuclear programme, international sanctions and regional interventions in line with their long-term interests by utilising the dialectic of rivalry and unity of interests between these major capitalist powers. More specifically, the chapter documents that the internationally oriented capital fraction has been bargaining with the West for economic integration into the global political economy through pursuing conciliatory policies regarding the nuclear programme and the Middle East. On the other hand, the chapter reveals that the military–bonyad complex has strategically utilised the nuclear programme, interrelated international sanctions and Iran’s influence in the Middle East to hinder the permeation of Western capital, halt further integration of Iran into the Western-centred world order and push Iran in the orbit of China and Russia.

Traditional language histories have often focused narrowly on formal printed texts, produced by educated elite men from urban social elites, largely neglecting the everyday language practices of ordinary people. This chapter introduces the perspective of language history from below, where we shift our focus to these often-overlooked voices, in order to arrive at a fuller and more complete understanding of historical language variation and change. We discuss the challenges faced by investigations of the everyday language of ordinary people, including difficulties in determining actual authorship and interpreting texts produced through delegated writing. Based on case studies and examples from a range of different historical and linguistic contexts, we show how examining ego-documents such as private letters and diaries from lower social ranks can reveal valuable insights and complement and at times even correct our existing view of language histories.