The meeting between General Francisco Franco’s Spain and Nikita Khrushchev’s Soviet Union in the European Championship final in Madrid in June 1964 is probably the most bitterly contested Cold War football game of all. The two countries had been sworn enemies since they took opposing sides in the bloody Spanish Civil War thirty years earlier. In 1960 Spain was disqualified from the first European Championship after Franco barred the national team from travelling to the Soviet Union for a quarter-final fixture. On home soil four years later, the grudge match against the communist enemy finally happened. Both regimes went to great lengths to outdo their adversary, from disinformation to even contemplating the poisoning of opposition players. Franco used the tournament to showcase his authoritarian, quasi-fascist dictatorship twenty-five years after the Civil War. The Soviets, defending European champions and led by goalkeeping great Lev Yashin, were determined to spoil the party. The final at the Santiago Bernabéu in front of 120,000 spectators saw Spain, inspired by Ballon D’Or winner Luis Suárez, run out 2–1 winners and lift the first major trophy in the country’s history.

This chapter is devoted to the recently defined concept of strongly regular signed graphs (SRSGs), which generalizes the notion of strongly regular graphs from the domain of ordinary graphs. It presents the basic properties of SRSGs, provides specific constructions, and, as a fundamental result, classifies them into five disjoint classes. Each class is examined in detail, highlighting both similarities and distinctions with strongly regular graphs. The chapter also explores particular connections with 3-class association schemes, as well as constructions of signed Johnson and signed Hamming graphs. The concept of strong regularity is further combined with net regularity and walk regularity, with particular attention given to signed graphs that belong to the intersection of these classes. SRSGs with a small number of eigenvalues are analysed, accompanied by numerous illustrative constructions. For example, it has been shown that every connected signed graph with exactly two eigenvalues must be strongly regular.

Both John Milton and Andrew Marvell have been revaluated in recent years. Yet this is the first sustained scholarly work to compare the two great seventeenth-century poets. In his new book, which stands as the culmination of a distinguished academic career, Warren Chernaik examines the relationship of the two writers and their complex responses to their troubled times. The poets were close friends, yet the trajectory of their careers and their posthumous reputations differed significantly. As well as taking an active part in the major political and religious upheavals of their times, both poets engaged seriously with classical, Christian, and humanist thought. Combining close readings of their poetry and prose with detailed consideration of historical and intellectual context, Chernaik sheds fresh light on the enduring works of poets whose words still resonate strongly with today’s readers.

Phillis Wheatley Peters’s America was both a place and an idea, a reality and an aspiration. Through her writings she transformed herself from being a victim in the actual America into a voice for the America she envisioned. Wheatley Peters’ works should be considered diachronically, recognizing the significance of when she wrote what and to whom, rather than synchronically, as if her positions were unchanging over time. Anyone who attempts to identify her political beliefs must consider how free she was to express them, as well as whether the voice we hear is that of the author, rather than that of a persona she has created. Her image of America evolved radically during the 1770s, as did her vision of her place and role in it. The many ways in which Wheatley Peters subtly and indirectly confronted the issues of racism, sexism, and slavery are increasingly appreciated. Her ambition to be recognized as America’s unofficial poet laureate should be undisputed. Considered a remarkable curiosity during her lifetime, Wheatley Peters is now recognized as a major historical, literary, and political figure, whose significance transcends her ethnic, gender, and national identities.

The archaeology of Byzantium is the archaeology of an empire whose chronological bounds, broadly speaking, spanned the fourth through fifteenth century CE. The authors whose works are collected in this handbook examine methods and practice of Byzantine archaeology as well as the materials typically encountered in artifacts produced within the imperial boundaries. Byzantine archaeology is still a relatively young discipline, and, while vast in its scope and ambition, work in the field tends to be challenging to access. This volume aims to remedy this situation by providing current views of the nature of Byzantine archaeology, exploring crucial studies which elucidate salient features of the empire’s people, as well offering glimpses of how things may develop in the near future.

Both John Milton and Andrew Marvell have been revaluated in recent years. Yet this is the first sustained scholarly work to compare the two great seventeenth-century poets. In his new book, which stands as the culmination of a distinguished academic career, Warren Chernaik examines the relationship of the two writers and their complex responses to their troubled times. The poets were close friends, yet the trajectory of their careers and their posthumous reputations differed significantly. As well as taking an active part in the major political and religious upheavals of their times, both poets engaged seriously with classical, Christian, and humanist thought. Combining close readings of their poetry and prose with detailed consideration of historical and intellectual context, Chernaik sheds fresh light on the enduring works of poets whose words still resonate strongly with today’s readers.