The introduction brings the reader into the world of seventeenth-century Ireland. It offers a brief overview of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially the legacies of rebellion and violence that were present at the opening of the study in 1603. It considers broadly English understandings of and policy towards Ireland across a wide timespan, before introducing some of the key differences that emerged in the early seventeenth century. It offers a survey of important historiography and a reflection on source materials, particularly the 1641 Depositions and associated materials, before concluding with an overview of the book’s structure.

This chapter shows how the booster myths of early Los Angeles literature grew in scale and potency alongside the city itself, not least as Hollywood came increasingly to exemplify shimmering vacuity and false promise in the public imagination. Critiques of such a city arrived both either side of World War II from a welter of writers including Upton Sinclair, Don Ryan, William Faulkner, Myron Brinig, Dorothy B. Hughes, and Budd Schulberg. Gustafson notes that 1939 marked a golden year for LA literature, with the publication of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep, Aldous Huxley’s After Many a Summer Dies the Swan, John Fante’s Ask the Dust, and Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust. Less remarked upon historically, but surfaced by Gustafson here, this is also the period in which a more diverse vision of LA literature began to emerge, as the city became a setting and subject in writings by racialized minority authors like the African American Chester Himes and Filipino American Carlos Bulosan.

The chapter ‘Digital Diplomats’ examines how smartphones have become indispensable to the everyday workings of Brussels’ political and diplomatic life. Drawing on ethnographic vignettes – from a diplomat’s panic at forgetting her phone to a trilogue meeting where multiple devices shape negotiations – the chapter argues that smartphones are not merely tools, but integral to the EU’s everyday governance. These devices function as shapeshifters: they are information portals, negotiation aids, social outlets and even diplomatic prostheses, extending the reach and capabilities of their users.

Inspired by the scholarship of Donna Haraway and Bruno Latour, the chapter frames smartphones as central to the ‘diplomatic assemblage’ – a dynamic interplay of people, practices and technologies. The phone’s omnipresence transforms how work is done, from protocol staff using step-counters to assure delegates, to diplomats managing multiple conversations simultaneously. Yet, this dependency also introduces new vulnerabilities, as seen in rising cybersecurity threats and the institutional push to regulate device use.

Ultimately, the chapter reveals how digital technologies are redefining diplomatic bodies and practices, making the EU’s political life increasingly hybrid. To understand contemporary governance, we must recognise the smartphone not just as a tool, but as a constitutive element of the Brussels Bubble’s social and political fabric.

This chapter looks at the work of John and Michael Banim, who emerged as important Catholic novelists in the late 1820s. Their work attempted to capture the energy of O’Connellite politics in fiction, blending rhetorical set pieces with melodramatic incident. Public speech and oratory become centrally important to their work, and the influence of Richard Lalor Shiel on John Banim in particular becomes clear on reading his work.

This conclusion reflects on the importance of studying the two world wars as moments of interconnectedness, when societies, economies, and cultures interacted with one another across national boundaries. It insists on the importance of moving beyond solely diplomatic, military, and political histories to instead prioritize transnational and transimperial perspectives, acknowledging groups and individuals above and below the level of states. Several categories are particularly useful in this endeavor: home fronts, colonial mobilization, captivity, occupations, and neutrality. Taking stock of these helps to highlight new frameworks of experience spread across the world. Finally, there is the important question of the relationship between the world wars and globalization. By their nature and by the reactions they prompted, these two global conflicts were ultimately the agents as much as the opponents of that process.

Chapter 11 introduces students’ early engagement with Statistics in the Foundation to Year 2 level. It focuses on key concepts such as posing questions, collecting data, and interpreting simple visual representations. You will explore essential language, sample activities, and assessment strategies, along with common misunderstandings to look for when supporting young learners in developing foundational data skills.

Chapter 4 focuses on constructivist approaches and the central role of problem-solving. Through rich mathematical tasks, investigations, and frameworks like Pólya’s problem-solving principles and Newman’s Error Analysis, you will learn how to create engaging learning environments that foster exploration and resilience.

This chapter looks at a minor controversy in the life of Charles Robert Maturin to consider his work in the light of sectarian tensions during the ‘Second Reformation’: the energised push by the Church of Ireland to convert the Catholic population in the 1820s. The role eloquence plays in Maturin’s work will be looked at and considered in relation to wider issues surrounding religious rhetoric and Gothic writing.

This chapter explores the progressive integration of environmental law and human rights considerations in international law, with a specific focus on the development of environmental access rights and the acceptance of the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment from the early1970s to the 2020s. Concepts such as sustainable development and environmental rule of law, are an essential part of this evolutionary journey. A specific example of the integration of these concepts is the increasing recognition of environmental human rights defenders (EHRDs). It is argued that EHRDs play an essential role in enabling states’ realisation of environmental rule of law, the achievement of sustainable development, and the promotion of a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. The chapter notes that EHRDs face escalating physical threats and legal risks by both government and private sector interests in many regions of the world, often entailing violations of environmental access rights. Such risks detract from the otherwise significant progress that has been made. The chapter concludes that there is an urgent need for greater recognition and protection of EHRDs through stronger legal and policy mechanisms as part of enhancing environmental access rights globally.

Ambat Vijayakumar, an author of this book, writes:

The International Conference on Recent Trends in Graph Theory and Combinatorics (ICRTGC) was held in Cochin, India. It was organized by the Cochin University of Science and Technology, India, during 7–10 June 2010, as a satellite conference of the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM) 2010 held in Hyderabad, India. The conference logo (Fig. 1.1) was the renowned ‘Shrikhande Graph’. I had only a vague memory of having met S. S. Shrikhande in a conference held at the University of Mumbai and I had never heard about his contributions to combinatorial designs, association schemes, and the Shrikhande Graph itself before 2010. Although I do not wish to find excuses for my ignorance, it is surprising that the Shrikhande Graph came to my mind.

Do other people limit or even threaten our freedom and our projects, or are they necessary to their realisation? Do we only answer to ourselves for our actions, or are we accountable to other people as well, and if so, to whom? Do we have a responsibility for the welfare of other people? These questions, which Beauvoir addressed in the works she wrote from the Second World War onwards, have lost none of their relevance. Chapter 3 explores them by analysing many of her works, including The Ethics of Ambiguity, Pyrrhus and Cineas, America Day by Day, and her novels The Blood of Others and The Mandarins, which focus on social responsibility, communal action, and groups. Her anti-individualistic concept of freedom, focussed on projects and solidarity, is contrasted with the so-called negative concept of freedom and versions of the liberal concept of freedom. Beauvoir’s concepts of freedom, solidarity, and responsibility are proposed as tools to reflect on current issues, including some uses of social media, assisted suicide, the environment, and what should be done about historical wrongs such as slavery.