The conclusion briefly examines the impact of the Ichigo Offensive on Nationalist military provisioning infrastructures. Although US aid and advice resulted in logistical overhauls for specified divisions, improvements to provisioning and standards of living within the Chinese armies were limited in both scope and degree. Even after Japan’s abrupt surrender, grain retained its political and emotive connotations to remain an effective propaganda trope in the Chinese civil war. To feed its armies and sustain the war against Japan, the Nationalists had systematically extracted resources at civilian expense, a reality which gave the post-1945 CCP significant political leverage. In World War II’s longest-standing theater, food mattered most – to rival governments and regimes, to armies, and to civilians.

This chapter examines the development of illuminated manuscripts in Late Antiquity, focusing on their origins, evolution and cultural significance. It argues that illumination was not merely decorative but played a navigational, didactic and symbolic role, aiding text comprehension while reinforcing religious and political authority. Tracing the transition from papyrus scrolls to the codex, the chapter emphasises how the Christian adoption of the codex format facilitated the rise of manuscript illumination. It documents how the earliest illustrated Christian manuscripts emerged in Egypt, influenced by pagan scroll traditions, magical texts and the Book of the Dead. These manuscripts incorporated symbolic elements such as the ankh cross and interlace designs, which later became defining features of Coptic and Byzantine carpet pages. The study then shifts focus to early biblical illustration, highlighting works such as the Vienna Genesis, Quedlinburg Itala and Rabbula Gospels, which reflect the growing role of visual storytelling in Christian texts. The chapter concludes by emphasising the imperial patronage of illuminated books, noting Constantine’s commissioning of grand scriptural manuscripts and the development of treasure bindings adorned with ivory and gold. Ultimately, the study demonstrates how manuscript illumination evolved as a medium of authority, devotion and intellectual transmission across Late Antiquity and the early medieval world.

This chapter explores the architectural evolution of monastic settlements, tracing their development from their early beginnings in Late Antiquity to their eventual institutionalisation within the Christian Church. It examines the diverse forms of monastic architecture, ranging from isolated hermitic dwellings to large coenobitic monasteries, and the various factors that influenced their design. Providing a broad perspective on monastic life across regions such as Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Sinai, Nubia and Western Europe, the chapter argues that monastic architecture evolved in response to practical, spiritual and defensive needs. It highlights how early anchorites lived in secluded hermitages, often repurposing tombs and quarries, while later monastic communities adopted structured compounds featuring churches, refectories and defensive towers. Regional adaptations also played a key role, with fortified monasteries in Sinai, laurae and coenobia in Palestine, and the impact of pilgrimage shaping settlement patterns. Ultimately, the chapter demonstrates how monasteries functioned as economic centres, pilgrimage hubs and defensive structures. It also underscores how archaeological evidence challenges traditional textual narratives, revealing a more complex and pragmatic monastic lifestyle than literary sources often suggest.

Chapter 3 illustrates the poetics of illness experience by examining clinical conversations during a psychiatric assessment of a patient. Patients’ narratives in clinical contexts are often fragmentary and contradictory, reflecting their ongoing struggle to make sense of inchoate experience and position themselves in ways that elicit care and concern. Metaphors of illness experience open up narrative possibilities, but may be blocked by conflicting agendas or cross-purposes of clinician and patient. In place of an overarching integrative narrative are interruption, miscommunication, and mutual subversion. Focusing on narratives, with close attention to the speakers’ rhetorical aims, can identify situations of tension and misunderstanding, which can be clarified through cognitive and social analysis tracing the models and metaphors used in clinical exchanges to their personal meaning and embodiment and outward into the social world where they function as part of discursive systems that organize institutions and confer power. Close attention to metaphor in lived experience, social interaction, and cultural performance can yield an account of the dynamics of clinical conversations.

Chapter 3 on Attribution Science delves deeper into the science that establishes causal links between climate change, specific sources of emissions, and its impacts. The authors illustrate how these scientific developments are enhancing our ability to pinpoint the causes of climate impacts, an evolution crucial to a range of procedural and substantive issues that may arise in climate litigation. The authors also delve into specific regional impacts and showcase how attribution science has illuminated the ways in which different parts of the world are experiencing and responding to the unique challenges posed by a changing climate. This includes case studies in Africa, the Americas, Europe, the South Pacific, and Asia. The authors conclude by addressing the limitations and challenges in the field of attribution science before explaining how it is nevertheless poised to play an ever-more critical role in our collective response to climate change.

This chapter examines the concept of heresy through the growth of papal decretals, canon law and conciliar legislation during the High and Late Middle Ages (eleventh to fifteenth centuries). It explores the growth of medieval heresy during a period of burgeoning papal power and examines how popes both reacted to and constructed ideas of heresy and heretics.

The rapid development of international law post-World War II also coincided with greater reliance upon treaties as a source of international law. Treaties had always been recognised as a source of international law, and their status was confirmed in art 38 of the ICJ Statute. It was the development of the UN, with its emphasis upon international law and focus upon treaty-making as a means of not only peaceful resolution of disputes but also multilateral agreement between States on matters of common concern, that was the catalyst for a greater reliance upon treaties in the conduct of international relations. This chapter begins by examining the growth of treaty-making, before considering what a treaty is, including the nature of 'instruments of less than treaty status'. It then covers treaty negotiation, creation and entry into force; reservations, objections and declarations to treaties; and legal obligations arising once a treaty has entered into force. The chapter then turns to treaty interpretation, and then examines how treaties are voided or ended through invalidity, suspension or termination. The chapter concludes with a discussion of amendment and modification of treaties.

This chapter explores late antique portraiture, centring on its stylistic evolution, its cultural significance and shifting scholarly interpretations. It examines a diverse range of materials, including sculptural portraits, reliefs, mosaics and coins, alongside historical texts that shed light on how portraiture was perceived and utilised during this period. The chapter traces the transition from the naturalistic imperial portraiture of the Roman era to the more stylised and symbolic depictions of the Late Antique and Byzantine periods. It analyses how portraiture evolved from realistic likenesses to abstract, hierarchical representations, particularly as a response to Christianity’s growing influence and the changing political landscape, and argues that late antique portraits should be viewed not as signs of artistic decline but rather as part of a broader transformation in both artistic and ideological expression. The chapter concludes that portraiture in Late Antiquity was not merely about depicting individuals; it played essential political, religious and social roles, reinforcing imperial authority and Christian ideals.

This chapter examines the transition of pagan architecture and religious practices in Late Antiquity, focusing on the treatment of Roman temples under Christian emperors. Drawing on legal texts, literature, inscriptions and archaeological findings, it evaluates whether temples were preserved, repurposed or destroyed. Challenging the common assumption of widespread temple destruction, it argues that such actions were neither systematic nor state-enforced. Instead, the chapter presents a nuanced perspective, demonstrating that many temples remained intact and were gradually adapted for secular or Christian purposes. Archaeological evidence suggests that abandonment and natural decay played a greater role in their decline than deliberate demolition. It also highlights how Christian emperors often sought to suppress pagan rituals while preserving architectural heritage, with legal measures typically prohibiting sacrifices rather than mandating temple destruction. By emphasising regional variations in temple transformations and critically assessing sources that exaggerate instances of destruction, the chapter challenges traditional narratives, offering a more complex understanding of religious and architectural change in Late Antiquity.

This chapter examines the reciprocal accusations of heresy between the Byzantine East and Latin West: such accusations were only sporadically made during the first millennium but increased exponentially from the twelfth century onwards on the Byzantine side and, to a lesser extent, from the thirteenth century on the Latin side (where they were generally subsumed under the accusation of schism or ‘disobedience’). The notions of ‘heretic’ and ‘schismatic’, which ought to be distinct and precisely defined according to canon law, increasingly overlapped within the polemical discourse and were collectively applied to the opposite population, in a process of construction of religious otherness.

This chapter explores the development of funerary archaeology in Late Antiquity, examining how burial practices evolved and how they have been interpreted over time. It argues that these practices were far more complex than previously assumed, shaped by a range of factors including religious beliefs, social status and local traditions. The chapter challenges earlier assumptions that grave goods were exclusively linked to pagan burials, demonstrating that Christians also placed objects in graves. It also examines the influence of nationalism and antiquarianism on the interpretation of burial sites, particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. One of its key conclusions is that burial practices varied significantly and cannot be neatly categorised along religious or ethnic lines. Additionally, cemeteries served not only as places of interment but also as spaces for reinforcing social identity, political claims and communal memory. By integrating modern archaeological techniques with historical analysis, the chapter offers a more nuanced understanding of late antique funerary customs, moving beyond simplistic narratives of religious transformation.