This chapter discusses the political contexts of Arnold Schoenberg’s life in the final decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (c.1889–1922). The rulers of that empire, members of the Habsburg Dynasty, faced a number of crucial challenges that they ultimately were unable to overcome. These included numerous military defeats of course, but also internal dynastic problems relating to overstretched resources, Italian Unification and shifting attitudes toward religion and the Papacy, and a dynastic shift in its male members’ policies toward women. Schoenberg experienced the end of more than 600 years of Habsburg rule in Austria. This epochal shift would have consequences for his thought and music.

Stand-up comedy is one of the simplest theatre forms in existence. The comedian stands on a (usually) bare stage, talking straight to the audience in the hope of getting laughs. Yet it has never been more popular, with national scenes developing across every continent except Antarctica. In this insightful and accessibly written volume, diverse chapters explore the subject from many angles, ranging from national scenes, live venues, and recordings to politics, race, sexuality, and the question of offensiveness. Chapters also consider the performance dynamics of stand-up in detail, examining audience, persona, and trauma. Interspersed throughout the chapters are a series of originally commissioned interviews with comedians from nine different countries, including Maria Bamford, Jo Brand, Aditi Mittal, and Rod Quantock, providing rare insights into their craft.

There is a widespread academic acknowledgement, much of which was covered in Chapter 2, that the classical ‘semi-feudalism’ which was the focus of Indian debates in the 1970s and 1980s is of limited relevance in the twenty-first century due to market expansion, labour migration and the subdivision of landlord estates (see Lerche, 2013). Even Nepali leftist commentators have suggested that the declining power of landlords and monetisation of wages mean that agrarian relations are now ‘capitalist’ rather than ‘feudal’ with the exception of a few pockets (see, for example, Sharma, 2019). However, a critical finding of this book is that landlordism has remained remarkably resilient through decades of change, which have included land reforms, the expansion of industry and a state-led modernisation agenda. While the old Tharu landlords’ economic power may have declined in the ways documented in some other parts of South Asia, the absentee landed elite retain considerable control over its holdings, and rent and usury continue to act as the so-called depressor (Harriss, 2013) – constraining the development of the productive forces and pushing households into extreme food insecurity.

Nevertheless, intensifying articulations with the capitalist sector in the wake of economic liberalisation, and rising dependence upon wage labour, on a theoretical level could undermine dependency on tenancy or merchant capital amongst the landless and small landholders. Expanding capitalist markets could also simultaneously open up new avenues for capital investment amongst the urban and rural elite, reducing the incentive for landlords to hold on to their estates.

Exploring the already observable impacts of climate change, this chapter features stories from regions including Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, amongst others. Ramon Apla-on, a farmer from the Philippines, describes how unpredictable weather patterns affect agriculture, while Isaac Nemuta, a Maasai pastoralist from Kenya, discusses the severe droughts impacting livestock. Nadia Cazaubon from Saint Lucia highlights marine impacts such as coral bleaching. These personal accounts, supported by scientific data, underscore the urgency of addressing current climate realities affecting millions. The chapter illustrates how climate change is no longer a future threat but a present crisis requiring immediate action.

Much of the discussion on the urban experience in India has been centred on life as experienced in metropolitan cities. Whether we examine the process of production and distribution of the urban space or the emergence of the consumption cultures that have come to characterise urban life, the bulk of the literature explores these themes in terms of ‘megacities’. Despite academic attention towards reworked urban social geographies in studies of gentrification of cities, eviction of slum dwellers and the segmented residential patterns, there are few studies that examine unequal claims over the right to the city along lines of class, caste, gender and ethnicity in non-metropolitan urban settings.

I argue that the discussions on unequal claims to city life can gain from the insight that the unequal positioning of the metropolitan centres and the provincial towns, in material as well as symbolic terms, affects the experiences of city dwellers everywhere. Metropolitan cities are not just centres of employment opportunity but are also to be viewed as centres producing the normative ideal of middle-class practice. With a turn towards neoliberal public policies, a dominant narrative has emerged about the middle-class city dweller as primarily a consumer citizen, whose identity and politics are based on their consumption practice.

The phenomenon of near-death experiences (NDEs) has fascinated humanity for centuries but remains famously difficult to define and study. This book presents a unique source, integrating historical, clinical, psychological, and neuroscientific approaches toward a modern scientific understanding of NDEs. Featuring exciting clinical and experimental details about processes in dying brains, it examines the physiological and psychological underpinnings of this extraordinary phenomenon. Chapters offer science-based accounts of NDEs as a natural part of the human condition informed by our biology and the remarkable capacities of the brain. By proposing that the origin of NDEs can be found in the physiology-dependent mental processes of the experiencer as expressed in altered states of consciousness, this book provides up-to-date insights for psychologists, psychiatrists, neuroscientists, and philosophers alike.

We open the book by discussing the rise of constitutional courts and judicial review, emphasizing their stated responsibility as guardians of the constitutional system. We discuss existing theories of judicial power and independence, highlighting the concept of judicial efficacy: the ability of courts to create political penalties for elites who fail to abide by the constitutional limits on their authority. We discuss different types of penalties courts might levy and explain why attitudinal costs – particularly a loss of public support – represent the cornerstone of judicial efficacy. We then provide a summary of our argument, contrasting our theory of judicial efficacy with existing accounts of judicial power and impact. The chapter concludes with a roadmap for the rest of the book and a summary of our key findings.

Locke’s work in epistemology and personal identity secures his reputation. His excursion into political philosophy seems to have been guided by his patron, the Earl of Shaftesbury, to make a case for mixed government, in which Parliament is supreme and the monarch a Protestant. Locke argued for toleration among Protestant sects but excluded atheists and Roman Catholics. Locke’s argument for limited government describes the state of nature as one in which each has an equal right to punish infractions of natural law. Civil society comes into being when any number of people agree to surrender this “natural executive right,” on the condition that others do so as well. But, Locke says, contrary to Hobbes, submission to an absolute Sovereign is worse than a condition of civil war.

This concise and interpretative book digs under the surface events of the Wars of the Roses to explore the underlying dynamics of a typical civil war. Beginning with a demonstration of why the well-worn storylines of the Wars are so misleading, it moves on to expose the pressure for reform that animated the conflict and helped to shape its outcomes. It continues by looking at the logics of division and the reasons why the Wars, once started, were so hard to resolve. It concludes by returning to debates long discussed by historians: the role of the economy in the conflict, and the interaction between English affairs and the politics of the British Isles and the near continent. Throughout, a central concern is to emphasise the fluidity and uncertainty of these civil wars: once authority broke down, anything could happen.