The Gulf has acquired land in Africa, Europe and elsewhere for the purpose of cultivating commodities. There is considerable debate about these enclosures, and this chapter examines how they are understood. It also examines the scale and nature of these land grabs and what determines their success and failure. These enclosures can be found in a number of different locales, and this chapter examines their different characteristics.

In the proposed final chapter of the unfinished Pictures and Conversations, Elizabeth Bowen intended to answer the question of whether there ‘is anything uncanny involved in the process of writing?’ For the many writers who appear in her fiction, writing certainly is an uncanny process, capable of mirroring the self and manipulating others. Markie, in To the North, writes on scraps of paper to enact his predatory aims; in The Death of Heart, St Quentin accuses Portia of using her diary to ‘precipitate things’. As Bowen puts the matter, for ‘the writer, writing is eventful; one might say it is in itself eventfulness’. While such uncanny eventfulness would seem to grant the writer an immense power, writing in Bowen’s novels – be it letters, diaries, or novels – often takes on a troubling life of its own. Markie and Portia eventually find themselves thwarted by the after-effects of their writing. Given the tendency of writing to dangerously stray, it is little wonder that so many of Bowen’s writers, such as Iseult Arble in Eva Trout, never complete their masterpieces.

This essay accounts for the pervasive presence of technology in Elizabeth Bowen’s life and writing, arguing that her work develops a nuanced, often ambivalent engagement with technological modernity. From her first novel, The Hotel, to the late and idiosyncratic Eva Trout, Bowen presents technology not merely as a backdrop but as a dynamic force shaping identity, social interaction, and temporal awareness. The chapter traces how Bowen’s characters interact with technological objects – including cars, telephones, radios, and computers – not only as tools but as extensions of the self and mediators of experience. Drawing on D. W. Winnicott’s theory of transitional objects, it demonstrates how Bowen’s characters use technology to navigate psychological development and social belonging. This culminates in a reading of Eva Trout, in which technology becomes a totalising force, anticipating postmodern concerns with cyborg identity and media saturation, and positioning Bowen as a prescient analyst of the evolving relationship between humans and machines.

At the turn of the twentieth century, agriculture in the Gulf was characterised by pastoralism, oasis horticulture, and irrigation systems. As a result of the emergence of the region’s nation states and the oil economy, these activities underwent decline and were replaced by forms of agribusiness and large-scale agriculture. The most conspicuous result of this was the establishment of large enclosures in which members of the ruling class were allocated large areas of land and water resources. The scale of these projects was vast and ambitious. This frontier provided an opportunity for enormous enrichment, but it also led to the exhaustion of non-renewable water reserves. As a result, domestic production was scaled down by the 2000s, leading to an impetus for a greater emphasis on external imports.

Neruda’s poetry and political activism have been naturally inscribed in the geopolitical and hermeneutical framework of the Cold War, the struggle between capitalism and communism, and the national liberation processes of the Global South. His international recognition coincides with his political radicalization: from his exile at the end of 1940 to his presidential candidacy in 1969, promoted by the Communist Party of Chile. His poetry, on the other hand, from Residencia en la tierra and El canto general, and to his later Incitación al Nixonicidio y alabanza de la Revolución Cubana, can be understood as an expression of partisan literature. It is clear that Neruda is not only a well-known writer, but also an important witness of the twentieth century. In this context, this chapter begins with the question: Is a new reading of Neruda possible, a reading beyond the historical framework that has informed his usual reception?

The Veglia prima, ..seconda, and ..terza degli Unisoni (Venice, 1638) describe three meetings of the Academia degli Unisoni founded and hosted in 1637/8 by Giulio Strozzi (1583–1652). They reveal details of Barbara Strozzi’s public role as composer and performer, and the defend the Strozzis and Unisoni from anonymous libel and slander, compiled in the manuscript Satire et altre raccolte per l’Accademia de gli Unisoni in casa di Giulio Strozzi (Marciana, It X, Codice 115 (=7193)) [Satires and other collected works regarding the Academy of the Unisoni in the home of Giulio Strozzi]. This essay clarifies the chronology and relationship between these two bodies of writing discussed by Ellen Rosand. I identify the Academico Spensierato as the author of the three letters that conclude the Satire: the letter from the Spensierato to Giulio Strozzi, and the two letters following that ventriloquize Giulio and Barbara Strozzi.

Chapter 5 looks at political communities in the making and historicises the notion of citizenship status during and after colonialism. In Ghana, citizenship criteria have evolved from a combination of jus soli and jus sanguinis principles to a purely jus sanguinis principle, as if to compensate for the porous nature of Ghana’s borders. This evolution shows a tendency to render citizenship more exclusionary, and more dependent on filiation and indigeneity, creating other boundaries within the nation. Yet the unsystematic and deficient systems of documentation prior and after independence cannot provide proof of one’s status with certainty. This is why new nations (such as Ghana) and local communities end up using the principle of indigeneity to prove their legitimacy to belong. This chapter suggests that indigeneity and citizenship constitute each other and that those who belong are those who can convince of the indigeneity of their ancestors. These narratives of indigeneity being prone to contestation, citizenship is at the same time at risk of being undermined. This implies that local belonging and citizenship can easily be conflated.

The Introduction outlines the essential premises behind this book and the structure the book will take. It also offers some thoughts on the book’s approach to periodisation.

This introductory chapter examines the life, oeuvre, and contested legacy of Pablo Neruda against the backdrop of contemporary debates about cultural memory, ethics, and artistic value. Beginning with recent episodes of public denunciation in Chile, it situates Neruda within a broader dilemma: how to read and evaluate the work of canonical authors whose biographies reveal profound moral failures. The introduction traces Neruda’s evolution as a poet, diplomat, and political actor, highlighting the breadth of his literary production, from love poetry and avant-garde experimentation to epic, politically engaged verse and elemental odes. Rather than offering hagiography or cancellation, it argues for a contextualized reading that recognizes both the gravity of Neruda’s transgressions and the enduring influence of his work on world literature, politics, and cultural imagination. It frames the volume as a collective effort to read Neruda critically, historically, and globally.

National security concerns have long shaped international relations, with economic interdependence traditionally seen as fostering stability. However, recent geopolitical shifts have challenged this assumption. The strategic rivalry, particularly between the US and China, has raised the stakes of international competition and new forms of economic warfare. Historically committed to multilateralism, the EU faces pressures to reassess its approach due to an increasing use of economic coercion by other states. Emerging powers, particularly BRICS, are also redefining their roles in the global order, employing economic tools to counter Western hegemony. As unilateralism rises and the effectiveness of multilateral institutions like the WTO is questioned, a “new geo-economic order” appears to be emerging. This Chapter creates the basis for the normative and evaluative questions of this book by exploring how major economic players navigate national security concerns in an increasingly fragmented trade landscape.

In this chapter, I highlight specific challenges the continuo players face when performing Strozzi’s music. I argue that only by understanding Strozzi’s music as well as its poetry and harmonic language that the harpsichordist can truly partner with the singer to deliver a dynamic performance. First, most of Strozzi’s music is sparsely notated, so the continuo player must figure out the harmonies and notate figured bass according to their own analysis. Second, Strozzi—like composers of her time—does not provide performance instruction on how long the realized chords should be held or how they should be arpeggiated. To that end, I examine the cases of long-held notes and provide concrete suggestions on how one might approach the realization and timing based on text and rhetoric. In addition, I discuss how figured bass can be utilized to flesh out the melodies in written-out ritornello when no treble part is provided.

Part I of the book provides the framework and contexts for appreciating the significance of local history-writing. Chapter 1 deals with the different professional and elite groups who were the principal producers of history in the early Islamic world. Many works were produced by those loosely known as religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ, sing. ʿālim), but other professional groups such as government chancery officials and administrators (kuttāb, sing. kātib) are considered as well, as are those who can be very loosely labelled litterateurs (udabāʾ, sing. adīb). The chapter investigates how these groups thought about themselves as communities and how they derived social authority as elites. It is frequently assumed that these groups used history-writing as one way of underpinning their authority, but it is less frequently examined explicitly how such authority operated. Since this book absolutely agrees with the now well-established principal that history-writing supported the position and authority of relevant groups, it is important to establish in what precise ways this worked and what the opportunities to exercise authority were to those groups whose members produced local histories.