This article explores the discursive and practical entanglements of women’s work and sex trafficking, in Britain and internationally, in the early twentieth century. It examines discussions about trafficking and women’s work during a period that was instrumental in codifying modern, international conceptions of ‘trafficking’ and argues that porous and faulty borders were drawn between sex work, women’s licit work, and their sexual exploitation and their exploitation as workers. These borders were at their thinnest in discussions about two very important sectors of female-dominated migrant labour: domestic and care work, and work in the entertainment industry. The anti-trafficking movement, the international labour movement, and the makers of national laws and policies, attempted to separate sexual labour from other forms of labour. In doing so, they wilfully ignored or suppressed moments when they obviously intersected, and downplayed the role of other exploited and badly-paid licit work that sustained the global economy. But these attempts were rarely successful: despite the careful navigations of international and British officials, work continued to find its way back into discussions of sex trafficking, and sex trafficking remained entangled with the realities of women’s work.

What evidence is there that street music was widespread, problematic and immoral in nineteenth-century London? This article re-examines a substantial literature that has been used to build a case or argument of the pervasive notion that street music was a curse in nineteenth-century London. Looking at a variety of sources afresh the article argues that historical evidence has often been misunderstood, misread or misconstrued in establishing historical narratives about street music in nineteenth-century London.

This essay summarizes crucial ways that society—in particular, the United States—has treated claims by individuals to be free of generally required duties because their convictions tell them that performing the duties is deeply wrong. Among the topics I address are how the Supreme Court decisions involving constitutional rights and organizational claims relate to this treatment, but my main focus is on what I see as the critical issues and what I believe to be the wise choices for addressing such claims. Without attempting an extensive account of all that has been written on claims of exemptions, I refer to some relatively recent books that can help one to understand what is at stake and what can be said in favor of competing positions. I also provide references to recent and forthcoming work of my own that explores claims of exemptions in greater depth.

The article discusses the dramatic history of the Tsaritsyno Park and museum-reserve. By the mid-2000s, it had become one of Moscow's iconic places and a zone where urban public culture was shaped. The authors trace the history of this architectural ensemble and park in terms of their role in сity culture and analyse changes in the historical culture of contemporary post-Soviet Moscow. The Tsaritsyno Park and museum exemplify these changes. An unfinished country residence of Catherine II, with a Grand Palace that had stood as a ruin for over 200 years, it has been radically renewed by the Moscow city authorities in what came to be labelled ‘fantasy restoration’. The palace was finished and now serves as the core of the museum, organized according to a controversial historical policy. Tsaritsyno as a whole became a cultural oddity featuring historical attractions for the public, effectively an ‘eighteenth-century theme park’.

In the context of sustainable development, both developed and developing countries are implementing policies that encourage economic growth, environmental protection and social well-being in resource decisions. According to the 2012 Rio+20 Declaration, market-based instruments that complement regulations can offer an economically efficient push to sustainable growth. Market-based instruments, such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) and other market incentives, may play a crucial role in enhancing the livelihoods and wider well-being of poor people. However, for economic tools such as PES to prove valuable in managing natural resources, the decision-making and implementation processes must integrate adequate rights allocation and participatory mechanisms. This article examines forest ecosystem services in the context of the mangrove reserve forest of the Sundarbans in Bangladesh. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the largest remaining areas of mangroves in the world with an exceptional level of biodiversity. The article argues for a more realistic and equitable approach to PES projects in Bangladesh. It underscores the need for effective participatory tools, third-party monitoring and multi-service PES schemes to improve multiple mangrove ecosystem services in the Sundarbans.

This article examines how the American conception of female beauty introduced new and distinct understandings of beauty and femininity to postwar Italy. In analysing beauty product advertisements from one of the most popular women’s magazines of the period, Annabella, the article articulates the components of the American beauty ideal and illustrates how these notions broke with previous Italian ideas of beauty. Moreover, the article also examines how this new ideal promoted democratic consumer capitalist values – freedom of choice, individualism, and affluence – which had an important political and cultural significance in Italy’s Cold War struggle. In light of this struggle and the country’s postwar redevelopment, the American beauty ideal sought to influence the women who read Annabella and the way in which they fashioned and identified themselves – as the Italian ‘Mrs Consumer.’

I began to transition into the role of editor-in-chief of Utilitas in the spring of 2016 and fully assumed the position late in the summer. Since volume 29 will be the first for which I am entirely responsible, this seems like an appropriate juncture for me to say a few words about my plans for the journal.

Antonio Bresciani’s notorious trilogy of novels about the revolutions of 1848, starting with L’Ebreo di Verona, first appeared in the earliest issues of the Jesuit periodical La Civiltà Cattolica from 1850. They constitute an intransigentist attack on the Risorgimento, and portray the events of 1848–1849 as the result of a satanically inspired conspiracy by secret societies. This article re-analyses those novels by placing Bresciani in the context of the ‘culture war’ between lay and religious world views across Europe from the middle of the nineteenth century. The article argues that Bresciani represents a significant case study in the intransigent Catholic response to the kind of patriotic motifs identified by the recent cultural historiography on the Risorgimento. The ‘paranoid style’ of Bresciani’s conspiracy myth is analysed, as is Bresciani’s portrayal of Garibaldi, female fighters, and Jews – in particular the tale of Christian conversion presented in L’Ebreo di Verona. The article argues that, despite its polarising, reactionary intentions, Bresciani’s fiction betrayed many influences from the Romantic culture of the Risorgimento that he claimed to despise.