Synesius of Cyrene (b. ca. 373–d. ca. 410) was trained in the classical literature that depicted war as an event with armies opposing one another in battle, but he experienced a different kind of conflict in his own life – namely, the periodic and unpredictable raiding that troubled late ancient Libya. Synesius’ letters and his treatise On Kingship show that these conflicts brought sentiment to the surface as a kind of evidence about people that could be implicitly trusted; Synesius’ sentiment was palpably xenophobic, aligned against both “barbarians” and “Scythians,” and so strong as to circumvent rational examinations of the evidence around him. This essay examines the scaffolded construction of stereotype, built in Synesius’ advice to a hypothetical ruler, and demonstrates how knowledge, even knowledge that seems intimate and trustworthy, can be bent through engagements with violence.

Whiteness emerged gradually through specific historical developments rather than existing as a timeless concept. Evidence shows that ancient Romans and Greeks did not have our modern concept of race, instead viewing human differences through environmental and cultural lenses. Archaeological findings reveal that darker-skinned people lived throughout medieval Britain without systematic discrimination based on skin color. Several key historical developments contributed to later white supremacy: the Crusades’ creation of a European Christian identity, Spanish and Portuguese maritime expansion, early slave trading, and English colonization of Ireland. The latter served as a testing ground for colonial practices that were later applied globally. While pre-modern societies exhibited xenophobia and religious discrimination, these differed fundamentally from modern racial concepts, were not based on immutable biological characteristics, and could change through conversion or environmental adaptation. White supremacy emerged from these and other intersecting historical strands rather than having any single cause, challenging reductionist historical explanations.

This chapter discusses the sympathetic relationship between the gothic and sublimity regarding their serving similar social and political functions, emphasising their adaptability to the rhetorical interests of those in power in a given place and time. It then goes on to clarify their differences and consider whether they have a more ‘universal’ application than typically understood by taking a broadly historical approach, to examine the xenophobic and gendered origins of the sublime, and the ideological changes that come with the post-Kantian tradition. Rethinking the sublime as the differend identified by Jean-François Lyotard alerts us to imbalanced power relations and the demand for new idioms that give voice to the silenced, thus avoiding the sublime’s traditional claim to transcendence and therefore Western humanism. Similarly, a world-gothic sublime serves to witness the differend, the power imbalance between the ‘normal,’ who sets the terms of any tribunal, and the Other, who is silenced.

This chapter analyses how poetry of the late nineteenth century were mythopoetic exercises which promoted a nativist labour poetics that typically subtended the primary conflict of settler colonialism. It analyses how the heroicisation of bush work in the 1870s was built upon in the late 1890s when economic depression and changes to labour conditions saw a tightened alignment between labour to values of citizenship, civilisation and moral virtue. While 1890s poetry depicted the material and psychological consequences of capitalism and economic depression, its advocacy for workers’ rights were racially bound and can be mapped onto events that led to the White Australia policy. The chapter also discusses the influence of correspondence with Walt Whitman in Bernard O’Dowd’s vision of radical nationalism, yet also how such vision was likewise racially limited.

The goal of this chapter is to introduce xenophobia against Latinx immigrants. It begins with the story of Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez, a boy from an Indigenous Maya village in Guatemala, an exceptional student who migrated to the US with his sister, was separated from her, and died in custody of US Border Patrol in 2019. The story of family separation of Carlos illustrates anti-immigration policies and xenophobia against asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants in the US. Informed by Latinx critical race theory (LatCrit), this chapter discusses who are Latinx people, some popular myths about them, and how they are treated in the US under laws such as Arizona SB 1070 that criminalized undocumented immigrants. It examines the differences between internal and international migration, voluntary and involuntary migration, and emigration and immigration. The chapter includes a Food for Thought section on 9/11, the War on Terror, and Islamophobia. It ends with a discussion of Carlos Hernández and the need for immigration reform.

Evolutionary psychologists use the concept of reciprocal altruism/direct reciprocation to help explain cooperative behaviour. Direct reciprocation consists of self-sacrificing acts between two unrelated individuals that are based on delayed reciprocation. Documented cases of reciprocity are known in non-human species including the giving of regurgitated blood between vampire bats and mutual aid in vervet monkeys. Tit-for-tat has been labelled an evolutionarily stable strategy, or ESS. An ESS is a strategy that cannot be bettered provided sufficient members of a group adopt it. Humans playing prisoner’s dilemma repeatedly develop the ESS tit-for-tat strategy. This suggests that humans seek a willingness to cooperate but also bear a grudge when this cooperation is not reciprocated. Aggression and violence between the sexes covers: sexual harassment, intimate partner violence and rape. While rape and sexual harassment are almost exclusively male preserves, intimate partner violence involving female-on-male acts is actually slightly more common than the reverse.

Chapter 3 picks up on the topic of cheating and the benefits this adaptation confers to those who are able to pillage others’ resources undetected. It looks at the evolutionary implications of this capability in the human species, which can be traced back to the development of Theory of Mind. It then proceeds to consider cognitive adaptations that characterise mental life in the human species, marked by biases and heuristics that confer evolutionary advantages in terms of efficiency in the cognitive processing of salient information. These include stereotyping and xenophobia, which enabled our ancestors to distinguish friend from foe and to limit collaboration with similarly interested others for mutual benefit.

Latinx children’s and young adult literature offers Latinx children opportunities to step into another world and also see themselves represented in what they read. By giving Latinx child readers, in particular, worlds unlike and like their own, authors like Lilliam Rivera, Edwidge Danticat, and Marcia Argueta Mickelson also challenge dominant national narratives about Latinx experiences in the United States. In the stories these writers tell, young protagonists are confronted by various symptoms of US imperialism, such as racism, xenophobia, and homophobia. The protagonists’ journey often includes learning more about the oppressions that plague them and their communities and finding ways to dismantle said oppressions. Recognizing the role that the United States had in the forced (im)migration of many people of Latin American descent allows for a narrative shift away from the “immigration story” to a story of US imperialism and its consequences. Examining race and empire in Latinx children’s literature creates possibilities for alternative ways of knowing and existing where Latinx children can step in and out of worlds unlike and like their own.

The vast majority of emigrant veterans returned to their pre-war places of residence. Between bureaucratic hurdles, economic difficulties and the fact that many were leaving their loved ones behind in Italy, this was not an easy choice. This chapter covers the period of 1919 to 1921 and examines the early years of the emigrants’ reintegration into their lives abroad. The men faced different difficulties depending on their country of residence and personal circumstances. As veterans of a foreign – albeit Allied – army, Italians found themselves ineligible for national support schemes designed for British, French or American ex-servicemen and at the same time were cut off from supports on offer back in Italy. The issue of pensions was a major and ongoing problem. Even when the veterans received them, they did not stretch very far in expensive cities outside Italy and it was up to private charitable organisations to fill the gap. While in some countries the men found their status as veterans used against them, in the US, it was taken as proof of their good character. Thus, the arrival of Italian veterans was generally regarded in highly positive terms as it bucked the perceived trend of ‘low-quality’ Italian immigrants.

From the Enlightenment, liberal political economic thought, and the history of science, to the nation-building, ideas of citizenship, and border-setting that have defined European political and geographical space, and to racial capitalism and imperialism’s foundational role in shaping modern European economies, politics, law, and modernity, race has been central to modern Europe’s history, including its most painful episodes, and to the “global turn” in writing European history. Antiracism associated with internationalism, anticolonialism, and decolonization has also profoundly shaped European history and its writing – especially the “global turn.” Yet, considerations of economic, intellectual, political, religious, and other aspects of European history continue to neglect race and racial thought. This chapter examines the literature produced by the global turn on the role of race and racism in European history and reflects on its persistent marginalization in narratives of European history.

Chapter 5 argues that the increasing number of female servants and resulting visibility of women at court had political ramifications. By exploring the more active roles played by ladies and damsels in political events of the realm, I demonstrate how female courtiers found ways to access privilege for themselves, their families, and other associates through intercession. For example, they dramatically assisted Isabella’s coup against her husband Edward II and courageously stood by Catherine of Aragon during her divorce crisis. On the other hand, when national sentiment turned xenophobic, a queen’s foreign attendants faced scorn, retribution, and even banishment during periods of conflict. Some female attendants faced misogynistic attitudes that attacked their perceived propensity toward immodest sexuality, greed, and darker forces like witchcraft and poisoning. This role of women at court – apart from queens and particularly notorious examples like Edward III’s mistress Alice Perrers – has been neglected in many discussions of medieval court politics and patronage. I contend that the hostility experienced by some female courters highlights how medieval contemporaries themselves recognized women’s potential access to insider information about monarchs and the favors that could be bestowed to their kin, friends, and associates.

The nationalist element of Brexit populism had an entrenched ethnocentric character that was capable of breaking out in the in the form of racism. By 2016 overt racism had become taboo in public, but Brexitspeak had the linguistic means to dog whistle it. The new racism also enlarged the sense of ‘racism’ to cover refugee migrants entering the UK who were not dark-skinned. The sources of racism in the UK are diverse and subject to debate. In this chapter the focus is on the likely impact of racist demagoguery in generating and sustaining long-term racist attitudes. The example of Enoch Powell and his ‘rivers of blood’ speech is scrutinised in detail. But Powellism persisted well beyond the 1960s and 1970s: twenty years on it motivated the murder of Stephen Lawrence. In the age of the internet, Powell was a legitimising icon among neo-Nazi networks and appeared in website videos quoting and visualising his notorious speech. But veneration of Powell also remained apparent among right-wing Conservative politicians, activists and writers, and in their networking with ultra-right individuals.