The Introduction examines the historiography of the idea of the state in twentieth- and twenty-first-century Machiavellian scholarship. It analyses the empirical and methodological problems associated with this specialist literature, before then outlining a new way of reconstructing Machiavelli’s theory of lo stato – and of interpreting it as the very crux of his political philosophy – by laying out a new intellectual basis upon which to reorient our present understanding of the foundations of Machiavelli’s conceptualization of the state from his earliest writings onwards. It draws new attention to the formative role in Renaissance political discourse of a sequence of theories – subsequently discussed in each chapter of Part I of the book – which were drawn from classical Roman political, moral, rhetorical, and aesthetic thought and which came to shape decisively Machiavelli’s own theory. And it forwards the contention, substantiated in detail in Part II, that his theory underwent two redactions, first in The Prince and then in the Discourses. The Introduction closes by broaching the crucial question of whether, in classifying Machiavelli as a singularly pioneering theorist of the state in the early modern period, we should also see him as a theorist of state personality.

This chapter delves into the United States’s treatment of Indigenous peoples, with a specific focus on Indigenous sovereignty and economic rights. It begins by introducing the topic and setting the context for the discussion by providing a history of the treatment of Indigenous peoples in the legal framework, with an emphasis on the series of cases dubbed the Marshall Trilogy. This includes the struggles and advancements in recognizing tribal nation sovereignty and economic rights. It examines the recognition and affirmation of tribal nation sovereignty within the United States, including legal developments and court decisions that have shaped Indigenous self-governance. This chapter analyses the landmark case of McGirt v. Oklahoma, emphasizing its role in addressing past legal injustices, establishing tribal reservation boundaries, and strengthening tribal jurisdiction. It also investigates US tribal sovereignty in the context of international Indigenous trade, showcasing the ways in which Indigenous communities engage in economic activities and exercise their sovereignty on the global stage.

Anglophone Arthurian films (including television) continually restage the triumphant break from the medieval that serves as the constitutive myth of origin for modernity.  The divinely appointed absolute monarch (Arthur) returns, but only to figure a sovereignty invested in the people.  Medieval Arthurian narratives explore the nature and exercise of political authority, providing ideological legitimacy for political institutions and defining the individual’s obligations within those institutions.  This chapter examines how modern Anglophone film and television remediate Arthurian legends, projecting contemporary notions of sovereignty back onto the Middle Ages.

This chapter will explore, for the first time, the existence, development and characteristics of a Latin American corpus of contemporary Arthurian literature (nineteenth to twenty-first century), written both in Spanish and Portuguese. So far, the collection and study of texts from the Latin-speaking nations of North, Central and South America (Latin America) has remained unexplored. This chapter will show that this area has suffered from unjust neglect; there is, therefore, an urgency to fill this gap in Arthurian studies. Arthur, Merlin and Isolde are found in the tropical lands of Mexico or the great plains of central Brazil, and their stories were added to local motifs; they add new meanings for different communities of readers. Latin American children and younger readers were equally fond of Arthur – as much as young readers elsewhere.

The protagonist of Chapter 4 is the Ciceronian concept of the persona civitatis, an idea which comes to be associated with the ‘person of the state’ in Renaissance political philosophy. The first section of this chapter identifies the firmly theatrical role which this idea delineates in Cicero’s political thinking about the character of civil associations and the duties of the executive magistrate in the Roman Republic. It also illuminates how Cicero derives the idea from the same Stoic theory of personae which is subsequently developed by Seneca in a more markedly monarchical vein. The second section of the chapter then recounts the historical career of the persona civitatis, which comes to act as the pivot of a highly influential theory of representation in Renaissance political thought – a theory which proved indispensable to the humanist task of sustaining classical claims about liberty and the res publica in this transformed post-classical environment. In Renaissance Florence, Bruni, Palmieri, Manetti, and Alberti all recur to this theory to talk about how the republic can be embodied and articulated as a person. This is a line of thinking which Machiavelli will refuse to endorse: he never accepts that the state can be represented.

Chapter 7 examines audit oversight issues concerning overseas-listed Chinese companies, paying particular attention to the disputes between China and the US. It also discusses how Hong Kong has managed to solve its audit dispute with Mainland China and how it has played an important role in solving the China–US dispute. In practice, the auditing of overseas-listed companies is usually undertaken by local accounting firms, raising the issue of whether the regulators of the host market can reach the local accounting firms and relevant documents in their possession, particularly audit working papers. Until recently, this legal conflict has long been a serious dispute between the Chinese securities regulators and their counterparts in the US and Hong Kong. Only after the US Congress intervened to pass the Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act in 2020 could the US regulators finally reached an agreement with the Chinese regulators in 2022. This is a good start, but given the China–US geopolitical tensions, it remains to be seen whether the China–US 2022 Agreement will be implemented effectively as expected in the future.

This chapter introduces the arguments and structure of the book. It surveys how the liberalization of company creation regulations in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia across the first two decades of the twenty-first century defy the predictions of the existing resource curse literature. To explain the political constrains on economic liberalization in resource-wealthy, autocratic and hybrid regimes, the chapter introduces the rent-conditional reform theory. It also details the shortcomings of earlier quantitative studies of economic regulation and liberalization in contexts of resource wealth and outlines the methodological innovations of this book.

The early nineteenth-century literary revival of the Arthurian legends inaugurated a corresponding resurgence in the visual arts. New printings of historic romances and verse by contemporary poets, notably Alfred Tennyson, furnished artists with Arthurian subjects and stimulated popular demand for their work. Arthurian artworks proliferated everywhere from the Palace of Westminster to the walls of the Royal Academy to the pages of illustrated books. Under Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s leadership, the second generation of Pre-Raphaelites gave fresh forms to Arthurian narratives, imbuing them with melancholy and Romantic passion. In the latter half of the century, the trend spread from Great Britain to America and Canada, where artists introduced Arthurian figures into North American landscapes. In Europe, French, German and Belgian artists drew inspiration from Wagner’s Arthurian operas. The revival persisted into the 1920s, when post-war shifts in artistic and cultural values brought the long florescence of Arthurian art to a close.