The literature on nineteenth-century Newcastle city region is a narrative of industrial progress premised upon technological prowess. But there is another story to be told about the transformation of a relatively small northern town into a conurbation with the attributes of a modern city. This second process of ‘rounding out’ the city with social, cultural and political institutions to accompany the economic prowess is relatively under-reported. In this study, we follow 1,621 individuals and compare their record of being mentioned in the literature to their participation in 343 local institutions. The focus is directed towards those who are much more visible in the literature compared to institutional membership – ‘narrative heroes’ – and those with the reverse pattern, much more to be found in institutions than in the literature – civic builders. The two sets of individuals are discussed and reasons for their contrasting positions are suggested.

The paper investigates the syntax and semantics of an indirect causative construction, ‘make’ causatives, in Sason Arabic with a focus on the syntax of the embedded structure and the status of the implicit embedded agent. On the basis of several diagnostics, the study demonstrates that ‘make’ embeds an agentive VoiceP, which also manifests an active-passive alternation despite the absence of any morphological reflex. Regarding the nature of the implicit embedded agent, the paper argues that it is present as a free variable à la Heim (1982) generated on the Voice head itself. In so doing, it adds to the ontology of null arguments as well as suggesting that licensing of a grammatical object is dissociated from the projection of a specifier.

This article examines the creation of the International Solar Alliance (ISA), a new international organization led by India and backed primarily by developing countries. Official documents and wide-ranging interviews offer insights into the treaty-making process. Using a political economy approach to the study of international law, the article analyzes politico-legal issues associated with the creation of the ISA. The legal form of the ISA is best described as ‘soft law in a hard shell’: it uses the legal infrastructure of a treaty while relying on the social structure of participating actors for its future implementation. Empirical evidence suggests that three factors explain the treaty structure of the ISA: India's leadership role in the treaty-making process, the early involvement of non-state actors, and the preference of developing countries for legal form. Ultimately, the case illustrates India's shift towards a leadership role in climate change governance, and the steady emergence of non-state actors in driving climate action.

The history of medieval West Africa is defined by the age of three great empires that succeeded one another: Ghāna, Māli, and Songhay. How did these empires come to frame our view of the West African past? To answer the question, we have to understand first how the European and Eurocentric concept of an empire was imposed on a specific African context and why it thrived. In this respect, the case of Sudanic empires in particular illuminates the process of history writing and scholars’ relationship with their time and object of study. In the last few years, Sudanic empires have made a prominent return to the historical conversation. I propose here a critical reflection on ‘empire’ and ‘imperial tradition’ in the western Sahel based on europhone and non-europhone (Arabic) historiographies, from the first histories written in postmedieval West Africa to those produced by twenty-first-century scholarship.

On the night of July 15, 2016, the Republic of Turkey experienced yet another military coup attempt. However, this attempt failed, mainly due to civilian protest and casualties. Their sacrifice, according to the Turkish state, led to the creation of a new national celebration in Turkey, the “Democracy and National Unity Day.” Following the growing interest of historians in the field of national celebrations, this paper examines the creation of this holiday. It argues that the AKP government used this new holiday to shape the Turkish collective national memory and to introduce a national celebration that does not revolve around the founder of the Turkish Republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who symbolizes the secular camp in Turkey, but rather around the Justice and Development Party government and its more traditional and religious ideology, in the guise of celebrating Turkish democracy.

A study of the rights regime for environmental protection in India indicates that such protections overlap with constitutional rights guaranteed primarily to citizens or persons under the law. Contemporary jurisprudence has aggressively developed this intersectionality, declaring natural entities to be living persons with fundamental rights analogous to those of human beings. This article explores the role played by two judgments delivered by the Uttarakhand High Court – Mohammed Salim v. State of Uttarakhand and Lalit Miglani v. State of Uttarakhand – in the establishment of an effective framework for environmental protection. This is effectuated in both cases by assigning legal personality to rivers and articulating a conceptual shift from the human-centric approach. Accounting for the socio-cultural and spiritual relationships that have received legal protection, this article critically analyzes the judgments, their rationale and contributions to environmental protection. As the judgments articulate a paradigm shift in environmental protection, their effectiveness is best assessed through analyzing the frameworks created for their implementation. While the pronouncement of the Indian courts on the legal personality of rivers is an encouraging paradigm shift in environmental commitment, establishing the rights of nature was undertaken without due attention to the complexities that characterize the Indian socio-politico-religious context and to the legal consequences of bestowing vaguely contoured rights upon natural entities.