This chapter considers a specific set of northern Korean rural landscapes represented in visual arts, particularly film and stage productions, although rural landscape images of various types persist throughout an array of propaganda media. It proposes that the North Korean state selected a precise countryside image as the prototypical landscape of nationalism and that this landscape type serves as a canvas against which dramatised versions of nationalist myths unfold. Drawing from film and stage versions of several important North Korean 'revolutionary operas', the chapter explores how the North Korean regime has articulated the nationin a specific rural setting, namely the mountainous and thickly forested far-northern border area of the Korean peninsula. Several nature motifs dominate North Korean revolutionary opera, including Paektusan mountain itself, the rugged and climatically harsh topography, and the characteristic timberline coniferous forest of that high-altitude zone.

Five: I address the cormorant as an unwelcome immigrant, an indigenous bird treated as an invasive species. I reflect on the associations of the cormorant with human migration and on the historical tendency for people to shoot cormorants on church roofs. I then turn to the myth of the invasive starling in the United States to examine the overlap between objections to human immigrants and objections to birds and animals; and I consider the European cultural tendency to look to the east for the source of such ‘invasions’, offering an analysis of the claim promoted by elements in the fishing industry that the inland subspecies of the European cormorant is an ‘alien’, ‘Chinese’ invader that should be exterminated. I conclude with an account of a sketch by German comedian Gerhard Polt fiercely satirising his fellow Bavarians’ objections to the migration both of cormorants and of Muslims.

James Kraska and Khanssa Lagdami, The trajectory of science and technology in developing the Law of the Sea and Oceans Governance

This chapter outlines the scope of the book, introducing historical concepts and perceptions of disability, the popular connections made between deafness and disability, and the more recent approaches of social and cultural historians to disability, minority and community histories. The Introduction also highlights the processes by which the data for this research was collected, making innovative use of deaf newspapers and the way these were produced to provide unique insights into the deaf experience in Britain. The introduction then moves on to illustrate how this information has been used to inform an analysis of deaf leisure and sport and the ways in which broader theories of leisure as a basis for community cohesion can be applied to deaf people.

As states pursue net-zero emissions by mid-century, transforming energy systems and mobility is essential. This ‘Green Transition’ demands large-scale deployment of clean energy technologies and infrastructure, which requires expanding mining and mineral processing. Oceans, covering 71% of the Earth’s surface, are now seen as a new frontier for sourcing these minerals. These resources are considered strategic due to their role in clean technologies, sustainable products, and supply disruption. Consequently, the European Union, the US, India, Japan, and Australia have prioritized mineral supply security. As land-based deposits decline in quality and quantity, focus has shifted to the sea-raising environmental concerns, as the marine environment already faces over-exploitation, pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Harnessing ocean resources requires sustainable, balanced approaches. Technological advances are essential, particularly due to the expiration of the two-year deadline for the mining code. Once this expires, the ISA must consider any seabed mining plans. Given the complexity of seabed mining, assessing whether seabed technologies meet sustainability goals is vital. This chapter examines the governance framework, including precautionary practices, and examines the role of states and contractors. It also maps the technological and environmental readiness and highlights adaptive management to reduce uncertainty and avoid costly mitigation.

Britain's twentieth-century proprietary model railway trade resembles marine ecology, with many small fish trailling in a couple of barracudas' wake. Developing an integrated 0 gauge model railway system, in 1925 Frank Hornby bandoned Meccano components. As Kenneth Brown documents in ghastly detail, by 1985 the British toy industry, so profitable two decades earlier, had almost ceased to exist. Down with its parent bodies went the British toy train trade. Although a commercial failure, the toy-train system laid groundworks for Trix-Twin's startling success after 1935. Imported to Britain by Bassett-Lowke anglicised in appearance and manufactured in Northampton by Winteringham Ltd, one twig in Bassett-Lowke's ramified model engineering empire, Trix-Twin sold very well when he helped the German company's Jewish principals to evade Nazi anti-Semitic property laws. Today's railway modellers demand an astonishing range of peripheral items. 'The cast whitemetal kit has revolutionised railway modelling in Britain,' Cyril Freezer insists.

The inhibiting effects of twenty years of dictatorship on processes of democratic renewal in post-war Italy are clearly visible in the police. Several policemen accused of collaborationism during the Nazi occupation sought help from a neo-fascist network, the Movimento Italiano Femminile (MIF), founded in October 1946. A closer reading of post-war police journals and manuals suggests that the fascist experience influenced the Interior Ministry Police in more ways than they would probably admit. The post-war militarisation of the Interior Ministry Police saw a major influx of personnel from the army, the former fascist colonial police (PAI) and special divisions of the Militia. The attractiveness of Benito Mussolini's dictatorship depended largely on how far police personnel identified with its public order policy, but also on the career opportunities and level of material well-being it offered.