This chapter illustrates the Age of Empire in Asia as Britain, France, Russia, Germany and Japan took turns to batter the declining Qing. They carved out their spheres of interest and set up colonies; their encroachment roused resentment, which culminated in the Boxer Rebellion and added fuel to Chinese nationalism. Anti-imperialism would be a major political platform for revolutions to come.

Four principal types of disturbance can be identified between 1200 and 1500. First, 'reformist' rebellions, intended to correct what were perceived to be abuses and to remove from his presence those advisers responsible for the abuses. Reformist movements could nevertheless be transformed into the second major category of rebellions to be considered: dynastic risings, whose declared intent stretched beyond the criticism of royal policies to an attempt to remove the king held responsible for them from power. The third major group of rebellions consists of the popular risings: preeminently the 'English rising' of 1381 and Cade's rebellion in 1450. It was left to the last group of rebellions, the religious risings, to articulate a radical set of social and political demands. How the balance of advantage between opportunity and danger is to be struck largely depends upon an estimate of the seriousness of the civil wars and rebellions.

An impressionistic view of cinemagoing in the 1970s, contrasted with the 1950s, when picture houses would typically host films starring a recognisable ‘British stalwart’. The chapter goes on to discuss the elements that created a screen persona of that era, including the studio politics and the role of their publicity machines. A further issue is the decline of cinemagoing as television became the country’s most popular medium. The progressive dominance of US-backed films, a development stimulated by the ‘Eady levy’ is debated, together with critical reaction of the period to any perceived undermining of the ‘national identity’ on-screen. The introduction also considers the impact of such journals as Sight and Sound and Films and Filming on shaping perceptions of post-war British cinema. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the actors within this book were instrumental in both creating and undermining a national myth.

This chapter analyzes the attitudes of liberal thinkers in relation to Islam, with an emphasis on the Qur’an and the Prophet’s era, the hard core of Muslim collective memory throughout the ages. Liberal writers provided rich scholarship and dynamic interpretations of the sacred sources, based on scientific exploration of the historical, social, and cultural contexts in which Islam emerged in the seventh century

In 1829 the Westminster Review, the official journal of Benthamite principles with which both Mills and many other radical luminaries were involved, declared a recent publication to be the ‘second greatest of all comparatively modern books’, after Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Surprisingly, this accolade was directed at a work that has subsequently become unknown: Essays on the Formation and Publication of Opinions by Samuel Bailey. Though forgotten today, Bailey was a celebrated political economist, writer on parliamentary reform, mental philosopher and, above all, champion of toleration and a free press. The Formation and Publication was a vigorous defence of freedom of thought and discussion, and it had a lasting (if now unacknowledged) impact on the way this subject was handled throughout the nineteenth century. This chapter provides the first reconstruction and assessment of Bailey’s theory of intellectual-expressive liberty. In particular, it homes in on four main elements of his thought: (1) his innovative account of social intolerance; (2) his notion of a duty to pursue and speak the truth; (3) his psychological principle of the involuntariness of belief; and (4) his conception of the marketplace of ideas. It also touches on the legacy of Bailey’s theory of free thought and speech in the history of political thought.

It has been argued by historians that even as late as the twelfth century many treaties were still oral agreements. Certainly it is true that the absence of written records of peacemaking does not necessarily mean that they were never made. As expected, there are many reasons why such documents may over a long period of time have disappeared, the one usually cited by historians being that political events quickly outstripped an agreement's terms. One might expect that any document or contemporary commentator that uses a terminology involving the word peace denotes an agreement concluded to mark the end of war. However, in the late medieval period, descriptions of hostilities, or of the outbreak of war, are actually referred to by means of a number of different phrases.

Has Macron changed the course of French politics? There are methodological dangers in drawing any too firm conclusions. These are inherent in the ‘great man’ version of history, where a focus on the individual ignores deeper forces and underlying heavy variables. They are also temporally contingent; the observed period is a short one, undoubtedly too short to permit firm conclusions. During the period under observation, Macron benefited from a favourable set of circumstances, with an overall presidential majority, the absence of an effective opposition and a vacuum of leadership in France’s main partners. The Macron project is above all a hybrid political and economic project. Macron has set out to reaffirm the centrality of the presidency and rehabilitate the discourse of the State.

Death naturally marks the end of life. In late medieval descriptions of the ages of man, death followed decrepitude, the final stage of old age. It is easy to assume that death cast a long shadow over life in late medieval Europe. This chapter discusses the types of arrangements and rituals surrounding a person's last moments on earth, and the planning needed by those wishing to perpetuate the memory of her or his life. The funeral rites marked the stage of transition as the dead person was taken on a one-way journey from the place of the living (usually domestic) to that of the dead (a sacred setting). Like the death-bed rituals, funerals assisted the healing processes associated with loss. Burial physically removed the dead and the process of decay from the eyes of the living.

The boundary between definitions of ill health and disability becomes apparent in this chapter on children’s experiences in Glasgow in the Victorian period. Early efforts to establish a children’s hospital were resisted on purely financial grounds, as they were seen as a threat to the established institutions by taking away vital income. After Glasgow’s Hospital for Sick Children finally opened, it soon became apparent that many children who had been treated needed a longer time to recover but too-early discharge to poor housing conditions and diet could result in their recovery being arrested and reversed. As a result, a number of convalescent homes in the countryside were established to assist with children’s recovery and formal agreements were reached between the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and homes such as Ravenscraig and the East Park Home. This chapter traces continuity of the Victorian ethos when the children’s hospital and charity-run convalescent homes evolved in the aftermath of the Great War.

Nationalism did not save China, as the country disintegrated after the 1911 revolution. Warlords were able to control different parts of the country and they battled each other for power. This was further compounded by Russian–Japanese rivalry and the Japanese invasion. War seemed endless as the Chinese people were subjected to the civil war between the Nationalists and the Communists after the end of the Second World War.

Russian political theorist Peter Kropotkin is a giant in the early formation of anarchist thought. This chapter pays particular attention to the cultural/visual implications and possible models both he and Murray Bookchin offer for art history, the humanities and cultural practice. Kropotkin’s main work, Mutual Aid (1902) influenced later subjects in our discussion, particularly Bookchin and Herbert Read. Murray Bookchin is central to 1960s–1990s libertarian socialist political theory, interested in nonhierarchical human formations as well as symbiotic organisation in the botanic and animal worlds. He is discussed here in the realm of art and art history, exploring his understanding of earlier utopian traditions and his interest in artisanship, medieval society and technology. There are also links to another key text in the tradition of critical theory, Félix Guattari’s The Three Ecologies, in relation to external and internal ecologies.