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.

The introduction sets out the case for a study of regional television drama, at a time of significant change in the ecology of British broadcasting, and considers perspectives on regional broadcasting, in the light of the impact of global media culture on regional and local broadcasting. It defines regional TV drama, making a distinction between dramas set in the regions (but produced in London) and dramas produced in the regions. It outlines the aims of the thesis: to examine the representation of regional culture and regional identity, to examine the policies of regional broadcasters, to analyse the aesthetic strategies adopted by the makers of regional drama, to explore the relationship between regional theatre and regional TV drama, and to consider the current situation and future possibilities for regional TV drama.

Israel’s 1967 military triumph over the Arab states was widely applauded in the West but its military occupation of Arab land beyond the 1949 cease-fire line brought its army into direct confrontation with the Palestinian civilian population. The uneven struggle aroused the interest of the new left, a movement inspired in part by anti-colonial and anti-racist struggles, which saw the Israel/Palestine conflict in a different light from the traditional left. The chapter reviews the debates which informed this movement’s ideas on Israeli rule in the Occupied Territories. Political groups and intellectuals influenced by Marxism increasingly linked Israeli policy and military conquest to Western imperialism and characterised the Palestinian nationalist moment as part of the developing world’s anti-colonial struggle.

This chapter brings together work on rural landscapes and identity, the lives of young people in rural areas and the representation of rural youth in fiction to construct a critical analysis of Tim Roth's film The War Zone. Set in north Devon, the film reconfigures the rural as aberrant, heteroclitic and sinister in several linked ways. First, it challenges the lay discourse which positions the countryside as a safe place in which to grow up by portraying it as alienating and marginalising. Second, it resists the popular image of rural sexuality as playful, innocent fumbling in a hayloft by foregrounding Tom Holland and Jessie's exploration of their (deviant) sexual identities. Finally, by using as its setting the bleak landscape of north Devon, it envisions a contemporary alternative to a historically constituted version of rural England as a green and pleasant land.