Follows the further decline of American trade in the Mediterranean and the physical decline and death of the three consuls, all of whom become somewhat disillusioned with the United States and the State Department while unsuccessfully trying to insure that their families can continue to prosper in the Mediterranean.

The conclusion brings together the themes that have emerged throughout the book, provides comparative perspectives, teases out some of the wider implications for the study of gender and suggests directions for future research. It also comes back to the multitude of animals that have appeared sporadically throughout the different chapters, discussing the role they played in gender construction and the potential of human/animal connections to decentre the man in the process of creating male subjectivities.

Civil war soldiers worried a lot about cowardice in combat, something few historians have been willing to admit. The Introduction explains its importance and sets up how this book will explore the topic by focusing on two civil war regiments accused of cowardice and the lasting effects such allegations had on them. It also discusses what historian Drew Faust calls “war stories” and how constructed celebratory tales of martial glory often hide war’s chaos and horrors.

This chapter begins with the contrasting narratives of the Third Indochina War from the perspectives of Singapore and Cambodia which serves as the springboard to the study of the Cambodia conflict. It then proceeds to describe the debates on the war in Cambodia, following which the chapter outlines the objectives of the book and provides a historiography of the existing literature.

Provides a brief overview of elements of the Islamic normative tradition. I consider three key concepts – justice, the common good and community – and ambiguities of their contemporary application. The primary focus of the discussion concerns resources (including wealth and property) – their attribution and distribution. To whom do wealth, property and resources belong, and what are their responsibilities? How, by whom, and for what purposes are wealth and resources to be distributed, and who has the authority to make such determinations? In broad strokes, I outline how, according to religious norms, resources ought to be utilized and managed for the sake of the "common good." The purpose of this discussion is to provide a framework that facilitates a deeper understanding of the extent to which religious norms have been instrumentalized and at times, reformulated in the conduct of the four oil-financed institutionalized practices explored in subsequent chapters.

Take a broad look at American family and friendhip ntworks, examining marriage, child-rearing, and other family and personal relations among the consuls and members of the American community in the Mediterranean.

Writing first appears with the beginnings of urban civilisation and the emergence of the state in Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq) and Egypt’s Nile Valley at the end of the 4th millennium bc. This chapter describes the many and different contributions of the technology of writing and the force and impacts achieved with the revolutionary innovation.

Although woodblock printing of books has an earlier origin in China, Korea and Japan, the invention of printing with movable metal type that began in Europe in the middle of the 15th century was truly revolutionary. The innovation of printed books spread rapidly and stimulated the process to democratise knowledge as the medieval world transformed into the early modern, with new genres and audiences for books established in just a few decades.

I conclude with a review of my findings in Chapters 3–7. I elucidate the relationship between “oil” and “Islam” and what that relationship teaches us about politics in Gulf monarchies. The overwhelming message is that with their abundant wealth, Gulf rulers have been exploiting not only oil rents but also religious doctrine and its (re-)formulations to function as tools of social management and social control. Their aim is to bolster their authoritarian ambitions: ruling families’ capacity to both dominate and shape their societies and retain their monopoly over resources. For the sake of maintaining – and enriching – dynastic states and constructing the nation, oil and Islam are their principal tools.

Chapter 10 begins by summarising the conclusions from the case studies in terms of the model of ruler conversion, but its main aim is to adopt a global perspective on ruler conversions and on conversion more generally at times. It first underscores how vanishingly rare ruler conversions between Islam and Christianity are in the historical record and yet how open to monotheism immanentist regions, such as the Pacific and, to a lesser extent, Africa have been. Some scholars have already noticed the resilience of Buddhist, Hindu and Confucian societies to the proselytising drives of Christianity and Islam. The chapter summarises why this makes sense in terms of the mechanism of transcendentalist intransigence. It then offers a brief overview of how this affected Eurasian history by reference to the Ottoman, Mughal, Manchu and Mongol empires. The second half of the chapter offers a more detailed appraisal of the fortunes of Christianity and Islam in attempting to secure ruler conversions in South Asia, East Asia and both maritime and mainland Southeast Asia. Even though missionaries developed some of their most sophisticated strategies in these regions, the result was largely a failure. The conclusion to the chapter, and the book, reflects on the role of culture and the question of scale in historical analysis.

The introduction sets forth the theoretical framework of the book by defining the two main lenses through which the material is viewed: scholarly masculinity and clerical masculinity. In doing so, it clarifies their relationship to other types of masculinities and highlights the role of animals in gender formation. This chapter also situates the book in its broader historiographical context, within both Byzantine and Western medieval Studies.

In the long sweep of human history, certain key innovations were so dramatic in their impacts that they changed our world forever. What do we know from historical studies and archaeology of the topics chosen for five key chapters of this book?

Looks at James Simpson’s early career. Discusses the situation of Gibraltar and Tangier, the importance of Simpson’s diplomatic network and how it became Americanized over time as a result of the extensive diplomacy needed in the region.