This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book presents countless examples of community organisations, social enterprises and individuals making a real difference to the shaping of local services and a major contribution to local democracy. The Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition government does claim to have a vision in the twin concepts of the 'big society' and localism. The arrival of Margaret Thatcher's Conservative government in 1979 marked a period of deep uncertainty and turbulence in the world of local government. New Labour's agenda was often contradictory as an ever-increasing number of centrally driven targets cut through the notion of local autonomy. Little was conceded by way of more policy and fiscal autonomy for local government. It is true that there was great emphasis on attempts to boost local civic engagement and political participation.

The republican debates over French education proceeded on a few (familiar) fronts, focusing on civic, primary, and systemic elements of reform. This chapter discusses these fronts in detail. Each of these foci has antecedents in Ancien Régime debates and in proposals from the first years of the French Revolution. The reform of education raised directly the problem of revolutionary process. It also raised the problem of how already existing social, political, economic, and cultural institutions could manage the crises of the present while also giving rise to a fundamentally different order of things. While this had been true since 1789, the problem seemed more and more vexing in the early months and years of the Republic. Many of the participants in the republican debates over education saw matters of political principle in decidedly practical terms, imagining political transformations and institutional adjustments as part and parcel of the revolutionary process.

The chapter introduces the co-operative movement in the Nordic countries (excluding Iceland), summarising the history of co-operation in each country in turn. It asks what were the main influences on the development of co-operation in the Nordic context, and in particular, what was the role of foreign models of co-operation. The Rochdale system of co-operation was a common reference point across the entire region, but it was never the only model for how to organise a co-operative society: co-operators also drew on examples from Germany and Ireland, among others. Particular attention is paid here to the role of Nordic contacts in shaping the development of co-operation and how the personal networks of certain key individuals were gradually replaced by more formal institutional links. The chapter examines similarities and differences across the region and considers the extent to which these supported or undermined the existence of a common co-operative movement.

This chapter describes the extent to which public service broadcasters, specifically the BBC and Channel 4 contribute to the formation of what might be described as a progressive 'multicultural public sphere'. It explains the ideological function of scheduling in relation to the programmes made by racialised minorities. The chapter demonstrates how scheduling, as a form of cultural distribution, ultimately determines the ability for minorities such as British Asians to produce narratives that can contribute to cultural plurality, and a progressive/radical multicultural politics. It focuses on the decisive nature of distribution for British Asian cultural production. The chapter explores how British Asian cultural works are by default regarded as niche and examines how its success is measured by its ability to cross over into the white, mainstream market.

This chapter contains a collection of gothic texts between 1706 and 1750 connected with supernaturalism. It is a commonplace that Gothic writing developed in reaction against the rules of neo-classical criticism. The aim of John Dennis's treatise as a whole was to show the necessary interdependence of religion and poetry, and the importance of strong emotions in both. Shakespeare saw how useful the popular superstitions had been to the ancient poets: he felt that they were necessary to poetry itself. Although William Collins ostensibly eschews the use of 'false themes' for himself, his emotive treatment of the supernatural material he recommends to Home makes him a precursor of the Gothic novelists. In the 1790s, Ann Radcliffe frequently cited his poetry in her fiction and journals.

This chapter presents the early memories of Anne Clifford during the period of 1650-1675. This noble and pious Lady, after a happy and retired life in the northern parts, built and repaired several churches, chapels, bridges, and other structures of public benefit, making acts of charity and goodness the delight of her life. Anne died in her castle of Brougham in Westmorland the 22nd day of March 1675 in the eighty and seventh year of her age. She was buried in the vault in Appleby church to whose virtuous and excellent memory, her succeeding posterity owe many great obligations. Her autobiographies reveal her joys and griefs within a vivid description of seventeenth-century life. They reveal a personality that was vulnerable and determined; charitable and canny.

This chapter discusses two hybrid forms of Gothic drama in the 1960s, firstly the Gothic family sitcoms The Munsters and The Addams Family, and secondly the Gothic soap opera Dark Shadows. In a sense, both The Addams Family and The Munsters 'worried at' the home lives of their viewers, albeit in a humorous way, thus acting as classic American Gothic texts. An examination of the formation of Gothic television in the US shows that, as with early British television drama, the Gothic anthology series on American television was prefigured by the genre's popularity on the radio. This highlights the relationship between the domestic reception context and the Gothic text. Dark Shadows' particular brand of the 'fantastic-marvellous', the blending of stock characters and narrative events from the soap opera and the Gothic genre, therefore bringing into congruence the ordinary and the supernatural, might be seen to render viewer identification somewhat mystifying.