This chapter examines Allen Ginsberg’s “Plutonian Ode” as a powerful expression of ecological concern shaped by the poet’s long-standing engagement with industrial modernity. Building on earlier works such as “Howl,” Ginsberg’s poem intensifies his critique of environmental degradation, using vivid language and mythic imagery to address the ethical and existential implications of nuclear technology. I trace the evolution of Ginsberg’s ecological thought, arguing that “Plutonian Ode” reflects Ginsberg’s deepening awareness of humanity’s complex relationship with nature and technology. The poem’s fragmented form mirrors the disorientation of nuclear threat, while its ritualistic references reframe technological advancement as both reverent and destructive. Drawing on ecocritical frameworks, the chapter highlights how Ginsberg positions poetry as a vehicle for reflection and resistance. Rather than offering simple solutions, “Plutonian Ode” invites readers to consider the long-term impact of environmental decisions and to reflect on the responsibilities shared in an increasingly uncertain ecological future.

The third chapter is the theoretical centrepiece of the book and argues that efforts to ‘recognize religion’ in global politics remain ignorant of the costs involved. Building on this argument, it asks if the troubles with recognizing religion reflect more basic qualities of the grammar of recognition. Following the work by Jacques Rancière, Patchen Markell, Elizabeth Povinelli, James Tully, and Jens Bartelson it shows that recognition has two faces and that along with its frequently acknowledged empowering aspect, it also comes with costs. This is significant because it shows that the problems accompanying the ‘engagement’, ‘inclusion’, or ‘recognition’ of religion do not stem from academic ignorance, ideological bias, or conservative politics but rather are part of the conditions of possibility of recognition. The chapter thereby argues for the importance of understanding the conditions of possibility for recognition, that is, the epistemological politics of recognizability. To understand the costs of recognizing religion in global politics, therefore, one must study in detail the processes by which religion became intelligible as such. This is addressed in Chapters 4 and 5. Finally, I argue that being attentive to costs of recognition enables us to better understand choices of unintelligibility and the privileges of invisibility.

Ginsberg was a ceaseless experimenter, constantly pushing boundaries whether personal, social, or literary. Drug use was one such privileged means of attaining the transcendent states that Beat writers such as Ginsberg coveted. Ginsberg began his experimentations while at Columbia, keeping detailed notes of his experiences and remaining vigilant that his experimentation did not turn into addiction. Exploring psychedelics with Timothy Leary alerted Ginsberg to the wider social possibilities of its use, and he became famous worldwide as an advocate of drug experimentation. While his use waned later in life, Ginsberg was a firm believer in the power of drugs to challenge current depictions of reality, all the while remaining honest and open about their deleterious effects. Ginsberg openly called for the legalization of many drugs, broader experimentation both socially and scientifically, and castigated US drug policies and their negative consequences. This chapter explores the reasons for Ginsberg’s use of drugs, his advocacy for them, and the various poems he wrote while under the influence of substances collected mainly in Kaddish and Other Poems (1961).

Chapter 3.7 reviews priority-setting. Priority-setting is about taking explicit decisions on where limited public resources should be allocated. Vertical priority-setting focuses on choices for particular sets of health conditions or population groups whereas horizontal priority-setting looks more broadly across types of care, such as primary or secondary care, and broader investments. Key learning includes that

• Defining a health benefits package that is affordable and accessible by all implies a horizontal approach to priority-setting.

• Countries cannot progress towards UHC without horizontal priority-setting and without some form of collective funding and procurement mechanisms.

• Horizontal priority-setting is highly context-specific. Countries may need to reorganize financing and procurement mechanisms to overcome barriers to progress.

• Increasing the total resources for health benefits packages (HBP) can help with the introduction of more horizontal approaches.

• Improving procurement can also support the move towards horizontal priority-setting whether through national efforts (such as better data gathering and use) or international initiatives (i.e. harmonizing regulation across countries or global investment in health security).

• Local capacity is key in supporting the pooling mechanisms, HBP design and regulation which enable horizontal priority-setting. Donors can usefully support health systems strengthening by investing in capacity-building and information sharing.

• Strong political will and cooperation between stakeholders is critical in progressing towards appropriate priority-setting for UHC and in designing, financing and implementing a comprehensive health benefits package.

The introduction outlines the main issues tackled in the volume and presents urban collectivization during the Great Leap Forward as a case study for the search of a socialist everyday, different from and alternative to the capitalist one. It highlights how this search embodied a specific understanding of the political economy, and how it highlighted contradictions within the Maoist project of revolution. Finally, it describes the sources and methodology adopted in the book.

This chapter sets out a framework to analyse the existence of international law in thirteenth-century Mongol Eurasia. It uses the category of the Universal Mongol Empire and the creation and use of the yasa (Chinggis Khan’s legal code) as the basis of the legal arena of the time. In addition to the Universal Mongol Empire, Inner Eurasia as a unit of history, the Mongol Commonwealth and the Mongol world system are used to identify the making and practice of international law in this period. The Mongol Khans articulated a specific world view that accommodated the disparateness of the Eurasian landscape, be it peoples, civilizations, religions or political ideologies. Governance (political and economic) of this multifarious empire relied on institutions that permeated throughout the empire and gave it coherence. Thus the focus is on conveying the meaning of sovereignty and law which was a product of interpolity relations that had taken place over centuries. Consequently the chapter seeks to broaden the discipline of modern international law by engaging with historic Eurasia, specifically Mongol rule in the thirteenth century.

This chapter discusses the concept of revolution in Carpentier’s works, as it moves from an enthusiastic critique of the modern social order to leftist melancholia. As Rojas shows in his readings of Carpentier’s articles for Carteles and correspondence with José Antonio Portuondo, Carpentier did not take a clear stance toward Stalinism while living in Paris. When living in Venezuela, his Diario is full of critical allusions to the party’s “yoke.” However, a poetics of revolution can be found in his narrative and can be characterized as melancholic in its emphasis on cyclical patterns and on unfinished revolutions. Carpentier’s focus on the global revolutions that made the modern world order beginning in the eighteenth century narrows down in his last epic novel, La consagración de la primavera.

This essay offers an overview both of Alejo Carpentier’s writings and González Echevarría’s own work as a literary critic, especially as it pertains to his monograph, Alejo Carpentier: The Pilgrim at Home (1977). He traces the arc of Carpentier’s works, beginning with ¡Ecué-Yamba-Ó! and ending with El arpa y la sombra pointing to recurrent, highly original themes such as Afro-Cuban culture, classical music and jazz, colonial history, and exile, all the while noting Carpentier’s dialogue with a younger generation of Latin American writers. González Echevarría comments on the influence exerted by the concept of “the marvelous real” on Boom writers and magical realism. The essay ends by reflecting on Carpentier’s lies about his biography and points to similarities in his last novel, El arpa y la sombra (1978), between the character Christopher Columbus’s penchant to lie and his foreignness, and Carpentier himself.

Chapter 1.4 looks into official development assistance. Official development assistance (ODA) is provided by governments or multilateral development banks (MDBs) to support economic development in other countries. Key learning includes that

• ODA is critical to achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the world’s poorest countries

• The lowest-income countries typically receive less ODA than comparatively wealthier countries due to their limited capacity to absorb additional funds.

• MDB funds are best utilized when they are invested in under resourced areas, such as global or regional public goods, and when they are well-aligned with domestic policies and national goals.

• ODA success (i.e. resources having a meaningful impact on development outcomes) depends on

• – Prioritizing the right long-term development challenges

• – Effective domestic governance and an active role for national-level stakeholders

• – Transparency around ODA activities

• – Continuous assessment, evaluation, learning and improvement.

• ODA and financing institutions must adjust to new challenges such as climate change

• – moving away from a sector-by-sector approach, addressing trends and emerging themes and delivering innovative and agile financing mechanisms.

This chapter examines a form of racialization at Rome that declared certain non-Romans to be innately suitable to enslavement. In an instance of racecraft through stagecraft, Roman comedy contributed to the naturalisation of this noxious ideology by presenting a cast of characters whose visual appearance and social or legal status corresponds directly to predictable sets of character traits. At the same time, the enslaved and freed themselves wrote and performed Roman comedies, so the fabula palliata also pushes back in important respects against their times’ racial formations. The discussion concludes with an analysis of the life of the comic playwright Terence whose authorship of his plays was called into question because he allegedly lacked the innate ability for impressive literary production.

This chapter explores Allen Ginsberg’s stay at the now-famous Beat Hotel. Ginsberg, along with his lover Peter Orlovsky and fellow Beat poet Gregory Corso, spent an important sojourn at this spot in Paris. Located in the Latin Quarter, this run-down hotel would come to house other Beats such as William S. Burroughs and Harold Norse as well. Ginsberg’s time there was productive. He produced “At Apollinaire’s Grave” while in Paris and began his long poem “Kaddish” as well, while simultaneously seeing the sights and meeting a variety of famous French poets and artists.

A shared relationship to the city of Paterson, New Jersey, provided common ground for Ginsberg and William Carlos Williams. A key figure in modernist poetry, Williams helped to modernize Ginsberg’s verse through both example and personal instruction. The influence is especially notable in the early work collected in Ginsberg’s Empty Mirror and in poems of the mid 1950s, leading up to Howl, published with an introduction by Williams. Eventually, the two diverged over the structure of the poetic line and the relation of the poet to popular culture. Nevertheless, both in his poetry and in his teaching, Ginsberg continued to honor Williams as one of his masters.

This chapter explores a number of key questions concerning Ginsberg’s choosing India to revive his spiritual, historical, and class-conscious searches through his travels. Ginsberg, as he was Jack Kerouac’s protégé, repeated Jim Crow patterns of white–Other engagement throughout his life and could therefore be seen as insensitive. Another key question has to do with the authenticity of such searches – was Ginsberg really seeking Hindu advice as to how to organize poetry and protest, now that India had been freed from the British? All of these questions raise the issue of Hindu revivalism, which meant taking off the cape of colonial submission that rendered Hinduism to be a kind of penitent orientalism. In the end, was Ginsberg’s trek unique, or did it coincide with other colonial adventures?

While Ginsberg was certainly influenced by earlier generations of writers stretching back to the Metaphysical Poets, contemporary writers were also instrumental in helping him craft his own poetic vision. Foremost among them was his friend Jack Kerouac, who became a source of inspiration, guidance, and mentorship for Ginsberg throughout his life. This chapter explores the twenty-five years of profound yet tumultuous relationship that developed between the two writers, from their encounter in New York City in 1944 to Kerouac’s death in 1969. While their passionate and sometimes turbulent friendship sparked Ginsberg’s creative energy, Ginsberg drew heavily on Kerouac’s themes and stylistics – including his writing method of “spontaneous prose” – which became central to his own poetical voice. Though their relationship eventually fractured in the 1960s owing to political differences and rivalry, Kerouac continued to play a crucial role in shaping Ginsberg’s growth both as a writer and as an individual.

This chapter investigates the outer limits of the Book of Nature: the medieval concept that the world is meant to be read and interpreted by humans in the manner of a book. Authors who invoked the Book of Nature presented the act of metaphorically “reading” the natural world as a way of shoring up human identity against its conceptual outside, with non-human animals imagined as letters inked onto the world’s pages. Drawing on a corpus of allegorical, encyclopedic, and literary texts, the chapter argues that this image was also haunted by a more subversive possibility: that species identity could become as confusing as a real medieval handwritten text, full of blottings and ill-formed letters that threaten to leave the relationship between speech and species in a state of irresolution. Like written letters, non-human animals could produce meanings in the human mind – but also like letters, they could just as easily descend back into their latent status as meaningless shapes.