This chapter discusses the emigration of West Indians after the Second World War. It describes the arrival of black West Indians, generalised as Jamaicans, aboard the Empire Windrush to Britain in 1948. The chapter explores the significance of the migrant journeys of the West Indians, the beginning of black presence in Britain and the contributions of the migrants to the nation's chronological evolution.

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book talks about late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century English medical culture, a study of what it meant to be a doctor and how this changed over time. It presents a brief overview of the social, economic and cultural landscape of late eighteenth-century York. The book considers how forms of sociability, such as urban club and general social strategies such as marriage and cultivation of patronage, could allow physicians, surgeons and even seemingly lowly apothecaries to fashion themselves as genteel and upstanding local citizens. It looks at medical involvement in the provincial scientific movement, examining how local medical men positioned themselves relative to the so-called 'march of intellect', the cultural and ideological alignment between science and social reform.

Chapter 1 explores the ways in which regionalism, regional culture and regional identity have been defined and discussed by historians, geographers, economists, sociologists and cultural historians, from the Middle Ages to the present day. The aim of the chapter is to provide an overview of these concepts and a theoretical and historical foundation for the discussion of regional broadcasting and regional television drama in subsequent chapters.

This chapter argues that while European Parliament campaigns provide an opportunity for politicians and civil activists to engage in a dialogue that has multiple effects in the French political field, political agents reproduce national political culture and its in-built power relations. In Finland, a country that joined the European Union in 1995, the effects of European Parliament elections on domestic politics are significant. In contrast to other European Union countries that are divided into several regional districts for the elections to the European Parliament, France comprises one national electoral district. For the European elections of 1999, Jacques Chirac created his own list on a sovereignist platform. Apart from the electoral lists of social movements, which did not pass the 5 per cent threshold, the losers in these elections were the extreme right, the Communists and the Rassemblement pour la République-Démocratie libérale-Génération écologie list (RPR-DL-GE).

Chapter 6 explores three plausible trajectories for humanity’s future: a “failed world,” a “good Anthropocene,” and a middle path of “buying time.” The failed-world scenario envisions societal collapse fueled by self-reinforcing feedbacks between environmental degradation, power concentration, stress, and eroding trust. In this trajectory, far-right populism and rising inequality lead to nationalism, global cooperation breakdown, and mass displacement due to climate change. Conversely, the good Anthropocene imagines democratic resilience, institutional reform, carbon neutrality, and a cultural shift away from materialism. It emphasizes prosocial values, equitable governance, and low-footprint lifestyles grounded in leisure and morality rather than consumption. The third scenario, buying time, reflects the complexities of slow global transformation, proposing adaptive migration and geoengineering as interim measures. Drawing on history, the chapter argues that systemic change—though gradual—can unfold over a century, as with past social reforms. However, unchecked delays risk irreversible damage.