This chapter introduces state-dependent discounting and connects it to Markov decision processes.

Conservatives claim that high taxes encourage government inefficiency and waste, and that the private sector uses money more efficiently and less wastefully. Why? Because government has become so large that oversight, coordination, and decision-making are difficult, corruption has become a problem, market discipline is absent, government officials are prone to spending revenue carelessly, and measuring government waste and efficiency is hard. Hence, taxes should be reduced to limit government inefficiency and waste. But this assumes that market actors are less wasteful and more efficient than government and that they don’t suffer from many of the same problems that conservatives attribute to government. There is little cross-national or historical evidence to support the conservative claims. In fact, evidence suggests that cutting government revenues and unleashing market forces can sometimes be disastrous for the economy and society, as the Enron and 2008 financial crises proved.

Representations of royal and dynastic women were not limited to honorific portrait statues in the Hellenistic world. In different regions of the vast Seleucid Empire, dynasts and subjects could evoke the presence of royal women through highly choreographed ephemeral spectacles and ritualized performances. Moreover, figural representations of queenly faces cannot easily or exclusively be interpreted as portraits of specific Seleucid queens. Rather, my analyses approach these queenly faces as potent symbols that communicated information about the Seleucid dynasty and ideas about Seleucid queenship. Here, I turn my focus to these diverse representational practices, as well as to images of queenly faces on crowns, coins, and sealings.

Chapter 11 delves into the Rights of Nature, an emerging legal paradigm that ascribes legal rights to natural entities. Drawing on concrete examples from countries such as Ecuador and Colombia, the author elucidates the transformative potential of this paradigm in the realm of climate litigation. One of the most compelling aspects of this approach is the shift it instigates in our legal and ethical relationship with the natural world. By conferring rights upon nature, it challenges the traditional conception of nature as mere property or resource, and it promotes a more holistic relationship with our environment. The author argues that this shift can play a critical role in achieving climate justice by ensuring that the rights and interests of nature itself are protected in the face of climate change. The analysis of emerging best practice reveals that, while still in its early stages, the Rights of Nature approach is starting to gain traction in climate litigation around the world.

The Waldensians began inside the church in the 1170s, were excommunicated, went underground and survived into the sixteenth century. In our efforts to get at their past reality, how far can we penetrate the texts about them produced in the Middle Ages by a persecuting church, during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation by polemicists and in modern times by academics modelling them according to the latest intellectual fashions?

This chapter focuses on the urban and rural landscapes of the Balkans in Late Antiquity, covering modern-day Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia . It examines how cities and countryside areas evolved between the third and seventh centuries, with a particular emphasis on the material traces of early Christianity. The chapter draws on archaeological evidence, historical texts and urban planning studies to highlight the transformation of key cities such as Thessaloniki, Nicopolis ad Istrum and Serdica (modern Sofia). This contribution argues that the Balkans served as a cultural and political bridge between Asia and Europe, influencing the spread of Christianity and shaping imperial policies. It also explores how urban centres adapted to economic shifts and military threats, with some cities reinforcing their fortifications while others declined. Thessaloniki, for instance, maintained its urban layout and economic role, even as certain Roman public buildings fell out of use. Religious change also played a crucial role in shaping the Balkan landscape. Christian basilicas replaced pagan temples, while monasteries and bishopric centres became focal points for local governance and cultural life. The chapter further addresses the challenges of dating archaeological sites, emphasising the need for more precise chronological frameworks.