This chapter examines the inception, dissemination and development of Empire Day in Portsmouth, Coventry and Leeds and illustrates the contrasting motivations for staging the annual event. It takes a different approach and systematically contrasts the influence of the movement in the three communities through the local press, institutions and, where possible, working-class testimony. In contextualising Empire Day within the three communities, the chapter endeavours to contrast experiences between the towns and thereby assess the movement's significance and impact. The commercial side of empire, which had always been present in the numerous imperial exhibitions from the 1880s, was showcased in the most extravagant fashion in the Wembley Empire Exhibition of 1924. National perspectives, however, mask the process of how Empire Day was implemented in the locality and filtered through the provincial press and civic elites and received by the populous at large.

Through an analysis of Love's Mistress, this chapter addresses how cultural tastes and approaches to classical learning evolved in the first half of the seventeenth century, and highlights the influence of French fashions. It considers why Love's Mistress was so successful with its elite public, despite or perhaps because of its sturdy, potentially subversive comedy. The chapter first explores the elite/popular divide through a comparison with the vogue for burlesque in seventeenth-century France - the native country of Queen Henrietta Maria. Second, it argues that taking sides in the play's several controversies matters less than appreciating the situations of arbitration that Heywood consistently emphasises, making this a play not just about mythology, but about the critical apprehension of mythology and drama. Finally, the chapter addresses the generic complexity of Love's Mistress, including its relationship to Heywood's earlier Ages, contemporary pageants, and masques.

The hospital movement in Europe arose out of a tradition of charity and religious life that originated in the earliest days of Christianity. The extensive, fast paced, urbanization of the high Middle Ages, nowhere more pronounced than in Italy, challenged the earlier ecclesiastical model of charity. The establishment of new forms of community created novel social, economic, and political relationships that tested the traditional authority of both the secular and ecclesiastical hierarchies. Some scholars have viewed the rise of lay religious and semi-religious movements throughout medieval Europe as a result of theological reform and ecclesiastical leadership. At their most basic level, charitable institutions, such as the hospital, gave immediate relief to those who were in need, fulfilling a primary service to the urban community. Charity was a dual mechanism; it served to alleviate the poverty of others and the sinfulness of the self.

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book re-examines the history of chocolate at a local and a global level, linking together the legacies of early imperial exploitation. It also re-examines the continued global hegemony of western capitalists with the hard work of ordinary women in a British factory and on the cocoa farms of British West Africa. The book begins with the romance of the cocoa bean, food of the Gods, in which women tend to feature as either over-indulgent consumers or 'colourful' exotic workers performing the lighter side of cocoa farming. It explains women's complex relationships to the former British empire and how such relations have been structured by the chocolate industry. The book concludes by emphasising the narratives told by women working in the industry.

This chapter presents an account of the activities and social formation of the Do-it-Yourself (DIY) punk band Crass to develop a critique of the notion of 'subculture' employed at the time of the group's existence by the Birmingham University Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies. It supplies a narrative of how the band and the cultural movement known as 'anarcho-punk' provided a 'milieu' where class identities could blend and develop hybrid forms of cultural and social capital. Crass were a band that provided an alternative response to the traditional class politics of the UK. Their cultural and political work forged a hybrid class identity that developed a cultural capital that moved individual perceptions and horizons to a new level. The band's version of anarchism, based on a DIY philosophy and individual responsibility, moulded a new and influential anti-political response to the post-consensus landscape.

On his tours through the hills, Thomas Jones encountered many villages where the inhabitants had not set eyes on a European since the British had taken possession of the region in the 1820s. John Roberts in Liverpool brokered the supply of gifts and supplies; the paper correspondence between the mission secretary and his field agents was itself a material and symbolic transaction of personal and professional power and authority. In accepting the missionary's gifts, the headmen were actively manipulating the introduction of new material goods as part of their own tactics of control and modernisation. In the space between how gifts were given and how they were received by the Khasis, however, lies a transvaluation of the meaning of the objects. Letters were important lifelines in maintaining professional and personal relationships. The exchange of letters between Jones and Roberts reinforced the physical separation between the two men.

This chapter examines the ways in which migrants made sense of their surroundings and considers their impressions of New Zealand's Maori population. It is important to recognise that the historiography of Maori-migrant engagement generally neglects to distinguish the views about Maori held by different ethnic groups. Facial characteristics of the Maori even prompted some migrants to remark on the comparisons of Maori and Native Americans. A major representation of Maori by the Irish and Scots related to warfare and rebellions. Twentieth-century correspondents differed little in drawing comparisons between home and abroad. The naming of new houses and properties in New Zealand was influenced by the memories of home and demonstrated an ongoing sense of ethnic identity among migrants. The flip side of negative impressions of Maori engagement in warfare was appreciation of their martial skills.

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book argues that the boundary commission headed by Cyril Radcliffe offers a window into the complexity of nationalist dealings with colonial power structures and of colonial strategies of control, even during decolonization. It examines the nature of power relationships within the colonial state, with a focus on the often-veiled exertion of British colonial power. The book traces the reluctant cooperation of South Asian elites with British leaders in setting up the Radcliffe commission. It focuses on partition's impact on Punjab, in the north-west wing of the South Asian subcontinent. The book also focuses on the high politics of the British withdrawal and of Indian and Pakistani independence. It deals with the ground-level impact of the partition process.