This chapter explores the role and construction of race in Plato and Aristotle’s political philosophy. Focusing especially on Plato’s noble lie and Aristotle’s theory of natural slavery, I argue that both philosophers appeal to racial difference in order to reinforce and justify the differential access of the members of the societies they consider to political power and even freedom. While Plato introduces race into the kallipolis in order to persuade the farmers, craftsmen, and soldiers to accept their political disenfranchisement, Aristotle draws on and racializes existing Greek stereotypes about non-Greeks in support of his theory of natural slavery. Despite the significant differences between their respective accounts of and attitudes towards race, I argue that Plato and Aristotle’s accounts cumulatively show that the classical philosophical tradition was already quite interested not only in existing racial stereotypes and classifications but also in the mechanics of racecraft and the political uses of race.

This chapter reviews what is known about the paleogenomics of fossil humans with a focus on Neandertals. It argues that the mode and tempo of the evolution of differences between humans today and Neandertals was roughly equivalent to that of the evolution of differences among humans today. Rates of evolution of cranial morphology are fast and accord well with a neutral model of evolution by mutation and random genetic drift. The chapter then reviews the state of the art in the genetics of complex traits demonstrating that simple Mendelian traits are vanishingly rare and that most genetic variation in morphological traits arises from many loci with small effects. It concludes by discussing ways in which paleogenomics and complex trait genetics can be merged into a more cohesive body of thought that will allow scholars of human evolution to build a holistic account of the evolution of the whole human organism.

This chapter reflects on ancient schooling as a foundational institution for fiction pedagogy, arguing that the classroom served not only to transmit literary knowledge but to regulate the interpretive strategies through which fiction was read, written, and critiqued. It situates the classical curriculum as both a training ground and a target for the innovations of Imperial prose fiction. Revisiting the book’s central case studies, the chapter frames the novel as a genre defined by its playful but defiant engagement with the scholastic “rules of the game.” The chapter positions educators as early arbiters of fictionality whose influence extended beyond the classroom. Yet education was not the only institution shaping ancient fiction. The conclusion gestures toward future work on fiction in relation to philosophy, religion, law, and the visual arts, as well as in later Byzantine and medieval prose narratives. It closes by reaffirming the book’s core claim: that the complex relationship between fiction and paideia structured not only the form of Imperial prose fiction, but also broader cultural debates over imagination and the authority of the classical past.

This chapter is about the global epistemological politics of religion illustrated through a study of the transnational history of Pakistan and Israel. It argues that the entangled nature of these state-building ventures contributed to the circulation of particular understandings of ‘religion’ and its relation to the state, that this structured the minority politics of the British Indian Muslims and the Palestinian Jews, and that it both limited and enabled the claims to the nations and states that came to replace them. The case study focuses on two key individuals in the history of the Indian and Palestine partition and the Pakistani and Israeli independence that followed: Reginald Coupland and Muhammad Zafarullah Khan. It asks how they, the institutions they represented, and the ideas they carried, circulated, and influenced changed over the final decade before independence. It shows how claims for the recognition of religion in international relations are not separate from these forms of colonial epistemological politics but are intimately connected to them.

Chapter 3.9 Explains how payment mechanisms should respond to the notion of antibiotics as global public goods. Global public goods are goods and services whose benefits are universal in scope. Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) poses a major health and economic threat world-wide, making novel antibiotics a global public good. Payment mechanisms have an important part to play in encouraging crucial research and development (R&D). Key learning includes that

• The antibiotics market is broken. Despite global concerns about the failure of current antibiotics, industry struggles to develop the innovative drugs needed.

• The pharmaceuticals market is patent-centric and does not incentivize innovation. The development pipeline is dominated by redeveloped versions of classic compounds than to developing novel antibiotics.

• National and global incentive programmes are crucial in making the antibiotics market attractive to industry and in prompting the development of innovative, high-priority antibacterial drugs.

• Incentives must address barriers at different stages of the value chain, including the:

• – Scientific stage, for example by splitting the roles of the public and private sector in R&D

• – Regulatory stage, by speeding up approval processes and harmonizing approaches across countries, and

• – Economic stage, countering low commercial rewards compared to other therapeutic areas

• Drug regulatory agencies must strike a balance between rapid approval and ensuring that licensed drugs meet quality, safety, and efficacy standards.

• International coordination is key to reviving the antibiotics market and development pipeline.

This chapter examines the historical development of economic thought concerning international trade, tracing its evolution from early barter systems to contemporary theories. It explores mercantilism, classical theories of absolute and comparative advantage by Smith and Ricardo, and neoclassical economics’ focus on consumer preferences. The chapter delves into imperfect competition, introducing concepts like monopolistic power and product differentiation, which led to ‘New Trade Theory’. It also discusses efficiency maximisation, non-discrimination principles like MFN and national treatment, trade in services, and international vertical integration. The chapter concludes by emphasising the significance of reciprocity in trade relations and the role of the WTO in promoting international cooperation and reducing trade barriers.

Drawing extensively on his years in Paris both before and after his enforced flight from Havana in 1928, Carpentier’s early music criticism up to 1939 not only sought to stimulate debate among the Cuban vanguardia and raise awareness of repertoire then still largely unknown in Havana but also represents a narrative for his own aesthetic advocacies in his quest to establish a unique sense of Cubanidad. Far from mere journalism, Carpentier’s music criticism constitutes a workshop of ideas that nourished his literary trajectory, while also proposing European modernism as a potent model for establishing a distinctively Latin American identity. This essay explores these ideas, demonstrating how Carpentier aimed to counter the entrenched conservativism of contemporary concert life in Havana, at the same time shedding valuable light on the activities of the Parisian avant-garde and his unique position as both creative participant and critical observer.

This chapter explores underlying links between Carpentier’s life and works. It points out that because of his asthma, the boy did not receive a systematic education but read a lot. The phases of his longer apprenticeship can be divided in two, his years in Cuba, and then the years spent in Paris. While Carpentier distanced himself from socialist realism at the time, he committed himself to the defense of the Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. There is no doubt that as the youngest member of the Minorista generation of Cuban intellectuals, Carpentier worked consistently towards artistic, social, linguistic and political transformation.

Chapter 1.2 assesses community-based health insurance. Community-based health insurance (CBHI) is a voluntary, self-organized approach to financing health care for groups of individuals in the absence of other forms of health care coverage. CBHI scheme members organize themselves; collect and pool their insurance premiums; and use them to purchase health services for members. Key learning includes that

• CBHI is not a miracle solution to affordable access to health care.

• – The very poor often do not enroll, and when they do they tend to use fewer health services.

• – Out-of-pocket (OOP) payments are not necessarily reduced.

• Low uptake, poor delivery of promised benefits and challenges around governance undermine the impact of CBHI.

• CBHI does not overcome broader issues such as a lack of financial resources.

• CBHI might serve as a transitionary mechanism towards UHC and offer some financial protection for the most vulnerable provided that

• – Policy-makers create a supportive political and economic environment

• – Social capital can be mobilized

• – Schemes are institutionalized within the health sector.

A typical narrative of the Tang–Song transition depicts a dire process by which the cosmopolitan and expansionist (and thus strong) Tang dynasty (618–907) gave way to the inward-looking (and thus weak) Song. Despite decades of scholarly refutation, this common perception is still very much alive in the popular imagination. This chapter seeks to exploit the progress in recent scholarship that has helped advance our understanding of the new world order after the collapse of the Tang. I examine how a group of scholars and thinkers who represented the new intellectual trend called Daoxue (Learning of the Way) Neo-Confucianism made sense of the new reality. By situating and analysing their writings within the historical contexts that these texts were written and circulated in, the chapter aims to show how the new world order propelled learned individuals to devise new conceptual frameworks for persuading their compatriots that their ideas about foreigners should be adopted to ensure the survival of the Song state. It also considers Daoxue’s lasting influence in terms of providing a philosophical framework for conceptualising foreign relations during subsequent regimes.

Contributing to non-Eurocentric histories of international law beyond modern public international law and its doctrinal antecedents, this chapter sets Southeast Asian maritime law in relation to the history of regional coastal polities. Anchored in the long-term development of regional maritime networks and political centers, early modern Southeast Asian maritime laws incorporated the practices of Southeast Asian mariners. They reflect both the complex Southeast Asian societies and the transnational political economy of their times. In discussing these laws and their historical context, the chapter offers alternative origins for lex maritima and lex mercatoria.

This chapter extends the discussion of discrimination, as well as the exceptional provisions of Article XX of GATT, and incorporates analysis of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade, the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures, and the General Agreement on Trade in Services to describe the scope of constraint on national governments’ regulatory autonomy.

This chapter explores China’s engagement with international law from the nineteenth century to the 1940s. It examines China’s transition from its traditional world view to acceptance of and participation in international law. Despite the encounter with Western powers in the nineteenth century, China maintained its traditional world view. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 China began to change its stance, culminating in the establishment of the Republic of China, which embraced international law. Using Confucianism and the concept of tianxia, the chapter examines how Chinese civilization influenced China’s engagement with international law. It also explores how Chinese civilisation contributed to a more inclusive international legal order in the early twentieth century. Ultimately, the chapter aims to demonstrate the continuing relevance of Chinese civilisation in shaping China’s international legal practice and the international legal order as a whole in the twenty-first century.

‘Black Athena/Black Athenians’? At the dawning of the Age of ‘European supremacy’, intellectuals preceding Martin Bernal engaged in the reclamation of Africa and its role in the world. This argument takes up these concerns in four sections. Section 14.2 considers Bernal and the work of his predecessors who engaged questions of a diverse and inclusive antiquity that included peoples of African descent. Section 14.3 focuses on Phillis Wheatley and her genius in harnessing classical allusion as a poetic device and revolutionary speech. Section 14.4 focuses on the redefinition and reframing of Egypt and Egyptians, and Ethiopia and Ethiopians in relation to classical discourses and their employment in Black revolutionary conceptualisations from the beginnings of the American Republic through the post-Reconstruction period. In Section 14.5, the overlooked scholarship on antiquity of historically Black colleges and universities is engaged as a marker of the long history of challenges to White supremacy.