This chapter defines the term “natural language” (natlang) and introduces the field of linguistics. A major theme of the chapter is that languages change over time. The chapter demonstrates how you can systematically study those changes to understand how and why the language shifts typically occur. Language change is further connected to the development of language families and the importance of contact among speakers of different languages. At the end of the chapter, you will be asked to apply these concepts to a brief study of natural languages.

This chapter explores how the ranching-grabbing RDPE is supported by moral economic changes, which in this context is veneration for the cowboy lifestyle and scorn of traditional/Indigenous livelihoods. The cowboy lifestyle is often seen in a positive light, despite the violence that accompanies forest removal. These changes in the moral economy help to explain how locals increasingly welcome ranching-land speculation, even inside multiple-use conservation areas. Another key factor in deforestation processes are the policies and infrastructure investment decisions made at the federal and state level, which render large areas available for appropriation. These problems are also international, as groups expanding deforestation are still often funded by international banks, creating investment lock-in, as investors are more interested in preserving returns on investments than curbing illegalities. Simultaneously, there is a wide variety of activists in local communities who are resisting these extractivist pushes. The chapter examines where and how Indigenous peoples/forest-dwellers successfully resist land grabbing and clearcutting on their lands.

This chapter examines the long-term development of inequality in Europe, focusing on disparities between individuals, households and nations. It explores how social and economic inequalities have evolved over time, influenced by economic forces as well as factors such as gender, race and class. The chapter also considers global inequality, discussing the gap between rich and poor nations and the factors that have contributed to economic divergence or convergence. By analysing the historical roots of inequality and the role of institutions in mitigating or exacerbating it, the chapter provides insights into the social and economic consequences of unequal income distribution and how it shapes economic policy debates today.

This chapter explores the growing economic influence of China and its implications for state development. It develops a measure of China’s economic hierarchy and finds that Chinese support increases state capacity through different mechanisms than American hierarchy, primarily by enabling leaders to remain in power longer. The chapter also examines the interaction between American and Chinese economic hierarchies, revealing that their coexistence can undermine state capacity. It discusses the future trajectory of Chinese influence and its potential impact on partner states.

Mecca is the religious heart of Islam. Islam began here when the Prophet Muhammad received the first words of the Qur’an just outside Mecca and it is toward the Ka‘ba that every Muslim in the world is required to pray five times a day and complete at least one Hajj pilgrimage in a lifetime. In the vein of medieval travel this article will focus on three aspects in the context of Mecca: Finding the Qibla (direction of prayer towards the Ka‘ba in Mecca), pilgrimage (hajj) journeys to Mecca as recounted in a specialized travelogue genre known as ‘rihla’, and images of Mecca in hajj certificates and prayer manuals.Like Jerusalem, Mecca has been a religious nexus since time immemorial or so the story goes that the Ka‘ba, built by Adam and rebuilt by Abraham and Isma‘il [Qur’an 2:125−7], was a site of pilgrimage from ancient days. Stressing the omphalotic nature of the Ka‘ba, pre-Islamic Jahiliyya stories tell us that pagan pilgrims would rub their navels on a nail sticking out of the center of the floor of the Ka‘ba as a way of uniting with god and the cosmos.

The conclusion unites the key empirical, theoretical, and methodological lessons, showcasing findings on the causes of deforestation relevant for several scholarly fields. The book’s original contribution and approach highlight the importance of RDPEs as the ultimate cause of deforestation. These RDPEs are also building blocks of global capitalism and regional drivers of deforestation, enabled by state actions, yet simultaneously resisted by progressive state and civil society actors. Ranching-grabbing in Brazil and gold mining–organized crime in the Amazon are explored as particularly important extractivist systems that help to explain deforestation in the Amazon at a deeper level. The book also discusses clearcutting and how it is driven by the aims of the pulping, papermaking, and wood energy sectors in Finland. Finland is a Nordic welfare state in the EU, which provides a novel comparison of how regionally dominant extractivist systems can vary yet still cause loss of forests across the North–South divide in the world-system. The lessons are related to broader discussions around global forests and deforestation.

This chapter explores the effects of government-subsidized homeownership on dignity. I develop a two-part definition of dignity as beneficiaries' experienced agency in their own lives and in their relationships with others. This definition builds upon and engages with work in philosophy, history, political science, and international development. I further show how housing shapes individuals' perception of themselves and the future through quotes, causally identified effects, and a measure of dignity based on eye contact. Broadly, beneficiaries seem to be much more able to pursue their own goals and interests and assert themselves in society. I provide evidence for my theoretical mechanisms, which are related to wealth, certainty about the future, and the fact that housing is an important marker of status in society. This chapter highlights the importance of studying dignity in its own right, but it also serves as an important bridge connecting the effects on income and wealth, as explored in Chapter 3, to the effects on political behavior in Chapter 5.

Pavlovian conditioning paradigms have been a stalwart of animal research on fear learning for over a century. Recent advances in cognitive neuroscience research have led to new insights into the neural mechanisms of how humans learn to associate cues with threats, how these representations become bound to contextual features of the environment, and how they generalize to stimuli that are perceptually or conceptually related. By integrating information gleaned from patients with brain lesions, scalp electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and intracranial recordings, researchers are assembling a dynamic view of the distributed brain activity that generates conditioned fear responses. Innovative virtual reality technology, computational modeling, and multivariate analysis tools have further refined a scientific understanding of the component processes involved, which can inform future clinical interventions for treating fear- and anxiety-related disorders.

This chapter, by incarcerated writer John J. Lennon, explores the history of prison journalism through the careers of two writers, Wilbert Rideau and Dannie M. Martin. While both became journalists in prison, their writing careers took different forms. Rideau, serving a life sentence for murder in Louisiana, wrote in the typical, detached style of print journalists and helmed one of the most successful prison newspapers of all time, The Angolite, which was nominated for seven National Magazine Awards during his tenure as editor. Martin, serving a thirty-three-year sentence for bank robbery in federal prison, published voice-driven columns and freelanced for the San Francisco Chronicle. Both exposed pressing, overlooked crises behind bars and both risked reprisals from fellow prisoners and the staff responsible for their safety. Their stories of “committing journalism” contain timely lessons for incarcerated writers and prison administrators as the current renaissance of prison journalism continues to grow.

This chapter addresses the phenomenon of incarcerated writers who self-identify as “state raised”: bound to state-sponsored spaces of involuntary confinement (including foster care, juvenile detention, jails, and prisons) from childhood. The chapter begins with Kenneth E. Hartman’s reading of the work of Jack Henry Abbott; its second half, by Doran Larson, addresses the work of Kenneth E. Hartman. The chapter presents writers for whom legal confinement has formed the majority of their lived experience and who thus bring uniquely troubled while familiar (verging on the familial) perspectives to the explication of and reflection on legal caging and the writing that emerges from it.