Finnish clearcutting is driven by a historically consolidated political economy that includes the large paper and pulp companies, energywood users, and state and regional forestry expert organizations. The Finnish case highlights how boreal forest clearcutting is a key issue that receives less global attention than tropical forest deforestation. Historically, clearcutting was a story of economic growth, framed as a national success story of boosting national welfare in the aftermath of the Second World War (WWII). This approach to forestry management was a top-down model, which severed the traditional relations Finns had to forests. Since WWII, clearcutting has become an institution that is supported and protected by both industry and the Finnish state. This reflects the persistent hegemonic situation, although the role and importance of the forest industry has declined in society and economy. Even though the forestry industry is losing ground, it is still important in the cultural mindset of several forestholders. This chapter explains the crucial role played by a hegemonic and dominant system, which includes corporations, key state actors, and many private forestholders.

There is a worry that central claims pertaining to the divinity and humanity of Christ form a logically inconsistent set. This chapter briefly surveys and critically examines some of the ways of addressing the worry of inconsistencies and advocates a minimalist approach to resolving the worry.

George Jackson inhabits a central position in the living archive of diasporic Black radical and global revolutionary intellectuals. This chapter examines how Jackson’s political thought emerged through his consistent self-identification as an ordinary Black person inhabiting the historical, structural antiblackness of the United States. Against the telos of many carceral/prison narratives, Jackson’s Soledad Brother reflects the developing thought of a Black liberationist, carceral insurrectionist, and diasporic revolutionary whose primary political and cultural work is not focused on achieving his personal freedom (i.e. release from prison) but rather on organizing and proliferating radical ruptures of an existing oppressive order – what Jackson famously identifies in Blood in My Eye as “perfect disorder.” To study Soledad Brother and Blood in My Eye is to meditate on the consistency and militant commitment with which Jackson exhibited characteristics that made him an influential educator, organizer, and political intellectual during and beyond his lifetime, especially among contemporaneous and subsequent generations of politically activated (Black) captives of the state.

This chapter examines French travel writing from the latter end of the Middle Ages with a special focus on understudied accounts. As we will see, this period sees travel conducted by French-speaking military officers, court figures, and spies deeply embroiled in the local, regional, and international politics stretching across Francophone Europe and gazing outward over the Near and Middle East. Thus, although entitled ‘France’, this chapter necessarily encompasses far more than that geographic territory. It follows a peripatetic clerkly class ferrying counsel and culture between various Francophone royal and ducal courts. These authors’ disparate geopolitical backgrounds are subsumed under their choice to write in French, and their attachments to home are problematized by their itinerant lives and cultural aspirations. Their multifaceted accounts, often vexed and internally inconsistent, reflect the rapidly changing world through which they travelled.

This chapter explores how metaphysical models, particularly the compositional and transformational approaches, can help elucidate the doctrine of the Incarnation. While these models face challenges, such as the Nestorian and Attributes Problems, various solutions have been proposed to address these issues and align the models with orthodox Christology. Ultimately, metaphysical models aim to provide coherence and plausibility to the mystery of the Incarnation, contributing to the ongoing work of analytic theology in understanding this central Christian doctrine.

The beginning of Italy’s contributions to late medieval travel literature was contemporary to a broader cultural awakening taking place throughout the peninsula that would initially peak between the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century. Thus, after having been absent for several centuries from the annals of pilgrimage literature, the first Italian pilgrimage book, the Florentine Dominican Ricoldo da Montecroce’s Liber Peregrinacionis or Itinerarium represented an original and innovative contribution to travel literature. Italian contributions during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries will continue to be distinctive and often of a broader European and/or world literary impact across multiple genres. These include Marco Polo’s Description of the World, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, Niccolò da Poggibonsi’s Libro d’Oltramare, contributions of Italian humanists such as Petrarch and Boccccio to travel literature, and the Italian literature of the discovery and exploration that culminated in the Venetian Giovanni Battista Ramusio’s Navigationi et viaggi.

Medieval Hungary lay on the cross-roads for medieval travellers, along one of the main communication routes of medieval Europe. Its position in the Carpathian basin determined many aspects of its connections with regions near and far. All travellers, diplomats, pilgrims, and armies who wanted to take the overland route from Western Europe to Byzantium or further, to the Holy Land, followed the valley of the Danube from Southern Germany through Austria, Hungary, and on to the southeast. Travel literature for Hungary should be appreciated as complex. Hungary was visited by foreigners coming from many different directions, Christians and non-Christians, monarchs, armies, and simple travellers. Pilgrims travelling to holy places, students studying in foreign universities, rulers on military campaigns or diplomatic missions, mercenaries fighting in various military conflicts, and prisoners of war, were among the many reasons for travel. are. Distinctive travel literature for medieval Hungary is only a small part of the textual sources relating to travellers who arrived in or departed from this country.

This chapter explores the dance culture of Vienna in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It describes the changing legislation that opened up the city’s dance halls to a paying public, and the subsequent establishment of new dance venues across the city and its suburbs. It considers the social make-up of attendees at these venues, and ways in which social class was both entrenched and destabilised in this setting, particularly through practices such as masking. Descriptions of the minuet, the German dance and the contredanse – the three main dances performed at the public balls during this period – are given. The chapter ends with a detailed account of a public ball hosted by the Gesellschaft bildender Künstler at the Hofburg Redoutensaal on 25 November 1792, for which Haydn composed the music. The aim of focusing on this one event is to paint as vivid as possible a picture of the scene, such that readers can readily put themselves ‘in the shoes’ of minuet dancers in Vienna at the end of the century.

The concluding chapter reflects on the future of American hierarchy and state development in light of the book’s findings. It discusses potential changes in American economic priorities and the rise of new hierarchies in the international system. The chapter explores the implications for partner states and highlights the need for further research on the role of nonstate actors, such as firms and international organizations. It also considers the normative implications of the book’s findings and underscores the importance of understanding the complex effects of hierarchy on state-building.

Iceland was an island discovered and populated by travellers in the early Middle Ages. Travel was thus an essential part of the Icelandic experience. The Old Icelandic sagas include numerous examples of travel writing, describing various kinds of sea voyages, such as Viking raids, military conquests, diplomatic missions, trading expeditions, as well as voyages of discovery and colonisation. Journeys on land are also described, in particular the pilgrimages which are called ‘walks to the South’ (ON. suðrgöngur). Norsemen drew geographical material from erudite works in Latin by Solinus, Orosius, Isidore of Seville, Bede, and Honorius Augustodunensis. To these they added information acquired personally, both at home and on journeys abroad as Vikings, traders, and pilgrims. What information concerning actual travel can be gathered from these sources? What was the motivation for the journeys described in the sagas? How do the sagas combine learned material from medieval Europe with native traditions from the Norse world? And above all, in what sense did the Icelanders view travel as a liminal experience?

This chapter builds on the grammatical foundation provided in Chapters 7 and 8, specifically diving into grammatical features of nouns. In this chapter, you will be introduced to three major ways nouns can inflect in languages: number, noun class, and case. The examples provided throughout each section focus on the most common types of inflections found in languages to help inspire you as you make noun-marking decisions for your conlang. The final section explores connections between adpositions and case. The exercises at the end of this chapter ask you to decide whether you will mark nouns for number, noun class, and/or case and, if so, how.

Rome continued to attract deep interest for its classical vestiges. The most cultivated among pilgrims and travellers also came to Rome to see what remained of the old monuments scattered within and without the 20 km of its city walls that enclosed a territory of 1,400 hectares and a population between 30,000 and 50,000 inhabitants. The variety of geographical origins, perspectives and approaches to Rome as a destination of travel, whether real pilgrimages and journeys or imaginary and intellectual journeys, produced a rich array of texts of different genres: itineraries amidst churches and ancient monuments of Rome, catalogues that described the city, its features, marvels (mirabilia), sites, buildings and history, pilgrims’ and travellers’ accounts in the form of journals of their trips to Rome, including routes and impressions of the city; simple itineraries; letters addressed to friends; various kinds of literary (poetic or narrative) representations of the pilgrimage or journey to Rome.

Women’s prison zines in the 1970s represent a pivotal moment in the evolution of feminist grassroots media, marking a sustained effort by incarcerated women to create their own platforms for self-expression and political organizing. Emerging from Black Power, queer liberation, and prison abolition movements, zines challenged dominant narratives about crime, punishment, and women’s experiences of incarceration. Historically, the carceral state and its monopoly over the bodies of imprisoned individuals played crucial roles in suppressing the voices and experiences of incarcerated women, particularly women of color and LGBTQ+ individuals. Zines like Through the Looking Glass, No More Cages, and Bar None were consequential to incarcerated women’s ability to forge solidarity networks, articulate anti-carceral feminist perspectives, and imagine alternatives to incarceration. The chapter utilizes literary analysis to delineate the impact of these zines, demonstrating how these publications functioned as tools for activism, self-expression, and community-building within the constraints of the carceral system.