The introduction starts by recounting the history of this project, from an ignorant first encounter with the traces of expos, through the enthusiastic embrace of the burgeoning academic literature on them, to a puzzling first experience of an expo in real life. It suggests that the existence of expos, and their endurance in Japan, challenges the existing literature, which either mines them to explore other phenomena, or assumes that as exemplars of modern spectacle they can serve as an effective ideological apparatus. Rather, it argues, they might help us refine our understanding of development, spectacle, and their relationship, and of modern Japan. Doing so, however, requires us to be alert to the limits of our sources, however extensive the expo archive, and to craft our accounts to reflect these.

This chapter introduces the research, justifies the methodological choices and outlines the structure of the book.

Warfare did not evolve in a linear fashion. This is most obvious on the physical level: the weapons and armies of polities across time and space have fluctuated in sophistication, so that early European medieval armies had more in common with ancient Israelite or Greek contingents than with the Roman war machinery, and, up to the nineteenth century or even the twentieth, raiding warfare in some parts of Africa or the islands of south-east Asia was akin to patterns of pre-Columbian warfare in the Americas, prehistoric warfare in Europe and ghazis and booty expeditions in Europe and around the Mediterranean. Where warfare’s aims went beyond mere raiding, for much of world history, the paucity or even absence of relevant sources has made it difficult to reconstruct political–strategic aims. We also encounter vast varieties conditioned in part by hard factors such as climate, geography and resources. We have encountered and possibly not always avoided the danger of squeezing cultural differences into a Procrustean bed of Western concepts and languages. Yet some striking patterns have emerged. Not only Indo-European cultures, but also Mongols and Chinese, came up with a strategic aim of establishing a universal monarchy, or defending against the imposition of such an overlordship. The forming of alliances for common strategic purposes and the defence of allies or clients is another widespread pattern, strategic co-operation counterbalancing long-term hostilities. The distinction between client states and allies was often blurred. Non-kinetic tools of strategy were also employed widely, from giving gifts, to tribute payments (again a distinction often difficult to make), to marriages to confirm peace treaties or cement alliances. And most cultures seem to have had some rules or code of honour with regard to the conduct of war which in many contexts imposed limits on the pursuit of strategic aims.

There is an enduring tradition that the first Europeans in the Americas and Hawai’i were perceived as gods, a phenomenon known as “apotheosis” or “the act of turning men into gods.” The tradition is especially strong in relation to two historical figures: the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in Mexico and the British navigator Captain James Cook in Hawai’i. It is, however, by no means confined to these two figures. Furthermore, considerable explanatory power is attributed to this divine identification: indigenous peoples apparently submitted before the demonstration of godly power. In the heyday of European imperialism – the nineteenth century and early twentieth century – this tradition was accepted uncritically by western historians. In the wake of decolonization, from the 1950s and 1960s, increasing interest in non-European perspectives on these early encounters caused historians to call this interpretation into question. Three key issues emerge: what evidence is there that such an apotheosis took place? If it did not, how did the tradition arise? And how did native peoples in fact perceive Europeans?

As scholars look increasingly for the traces of intertextuality and allusion in early Greek poetry, Homer remains the prime focus of interest, and the relationship between the Iliad and Odyssey especially so. This chapter suggests that, though direct allusion between texts should not be ruled out a priori, an intertextual dynamic which stems from the traditionality of the texts is a more reliable and rewarding first interpretative step. The discussion reviews two examples which have served as important planks in the case that the Odyssey explicitly refers to the Iliad, and finds wanting the allusive arguments normally used to make that case, before suggesting a more methodologically and historically sound form of interaction. Interpretation, meaning, and appreciation all remain possible, and are indeed much richer in their appreciation of the poetry.

This chapter shows that while African journalists are upset at being marginalized in the global narrative construction about events in Africa, they, too, are vital players in marginalizing African voices in the source selection processes. Thus, an African reader is much more likely to know what an American senator thinks about an international event on the continent than they are likely to hear from a regional expert immersed in the unfolding event. It empirically shows that African journalists are crucial players in silencing African voices despite their complaints of marginalization in Chapter 4.

Hannibal and Scipio left no autobiographies, except that Hannibal in 205, before leaving Italy for Africa, inscribed a bilingual account of his military resources. Scipio’s contemporary funeral elogium (list of his offices and achievements, a kind of succinct obituary) does not survive (a much later one does). This chapter offers, by way of introduction, semi-fictional replacements for these missing documents and explains what Hannibal’s full inscription is likely to have contained. Other first-person evidence by the two men is quoted and discussed, such as letters reported in the literary sources. The chapter closes by asking what Hannibal and Scipio looked like. Appendix 1.1 lists and evaluates the sources for the book, and there is a sub-section on reliability of speeches. Appendix 1.2 addresses the problem of whether Plutarch’s lost Life of Scipio was about Hannibal’s opponent or Scipio Aemilianus, his younger relative by adoption. Appendix 1.3 is about ‘roving anecdotes’.

This chapter discusses international criminal law (ICL) and distinguishes it from other areas of international law and criminal law. ICL is placed within the general area of international alw and its source doctrine whilst also discussing ICL’s unique nature as an area of criminal law. Critical approaches to ICL are discussed as an increasingly important perspective/approach to shaping debates in ICL.

This chapter begins by highlighting southern African archaeology’s importance at a global level, stressing the enormous time-depth over which hominins have been present in the region, the diversity of its archaeological record, and the contributions that this has made and continues to make to broader debates within archaeology and anthropology. Next, it indicates key changes made here relative to the first edition of this book in 2002 and then identifies the main sources of evidence available for reconstructing southern Africa’s past. These include archaeology, palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental science, ethnographic data, historical linguistics, genetics, and oral and written histories. The chapter then introduces the overall structure of the book, ending with a discussion and justification of some key matters of nomenclature regarding how southern Africa’s varied inhabitants have been/should be called. Guidance is also given on matters of orthography relative to sounds not used in English.

Can the experience of being ostracized – ignored and excluded – lead to people being more open to extremism? In this chapter we review the theoretical basis and experimental evidence for such a connection. According to the temporal need-threat model (Williams, 2009), ostracism is a painful experience that threatens fundamental social needs. Extreme groups have the potential to be powerful sources of inclusion and could therefore address these needs, thereby making them especially attractive to recent targets of ostracism. We also identify a set of factors that is theoretically likely to affect this link and review evidence for the opposite causal path: People are especially likely to ostracize others who belong to extreme groups. Together, this suggests a possible negative cycle in which ostracism may push people toward extreme groups, on which they become more reliant as social contacts outside the group further ostracize them.

This chapter introduces the following corpus of texts from ancient Egypt, and outlines the differing meanings ascribed to slavery and dependence from antiquity to modern times. The terms used for dependents and slaves in the various languages of the texts translated here – Egyptian (Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic), Greek, and Arabic – are briefly presented, and defining features of the condition of those so labelled are discussed. How and from where such persons were acquired, their life experiences, and the different forms of exploitation in which they were involved are introduced, as are forms of slave resistance and limits to the archaeological and textual evidence available, and so to what we can learn from it.

International human rights law is part of public international law and shares a number of its features, including sources, obligations (primary rules) and state responsibility (secondary rules). While international human rights law has formed within the broader setting of international law, it has developed distinctive features. Traditional international law was an order based on the sovereign interests of states as its sole subjects. In contrast, international human rights law is characterised by its emphasis on common interests that reflect the fundamental values of the international legal order. This value-based approach is evident in the concept of jus cogens, or peremptory norm, and the notion of erga omnes, obligations owed to the international community as a whole. Undoubtedly, international human rights law can form an important component of a new international order or international constitutionalism. However, unilateralism, selectivity and fragmentation, in addition to challenges of effective implementation, are restraining factors that may slow down, if not undermine, ‘constitutional’ developments at the international level. This chapter examines these dynamics and discusses the key building blocks of international (human rights) law: its sources; its rights and obligations and the scope of their application; and its implementation as well as state responsibility and enforcement.

After many years during which indigenous laws were mostly absent from narratives of Latin American law, presently, legal historians wish to integrate them. However, to do so requires answering the question of what we know about indigenous laws and how we can approach them. Writing the history of indigenous laws from precolonial times is especially challenging not only because of the diversity of human groups that occupied the continent, but also because of the disparity of available sources, ranging from material vestiges and pictographic documents to texts produced in indigenous writing systems. Furthermore, the colonial period has left us with a wide range of alphabetic texts, diverse in authorship, languages, formats, degree of accuracy, and sources selected, that describe precolonial law. Indigenous peoples, mestizos, and Spaniards also wrote historical narratives and accounts of deeds and services; furthermore, they participated as litigants in lawsuits in which they expressed their vision of law and justice. What does this evidence tell us about precolonial normative orders and the way in which they intersected with colonial law after the Iberian imperial conquests? To answer this question, this chapter proposes an interdisciplinary approach, surveying what has been done, and what could still be done.

The Introduction locates the current volume initially in the context of the work of the Alexander equipe since 1997, and then more broadly in the context of visions of Alexander proffered since the work of Droysen in 1833, with particular attention to those of Berve (1926), Wilcken 1931, Tarn (1948), Schachermeyr (1949), Badian (1958–), Lane Fox 1973 and Bosworth (1980–). A response is given to the objections voiced against the approach of the activities of the equipe formulated by James Davidson in 2001 under the slogan ‘Alexanderland’. The breakdown of the book’s parts and chapters is laid out and justified, with the contents of each contribution briefly summarized. Particular attention is given to the selection of the historical sources accorded focused discussions in Part III.

The author starts by observing that discussions about the foundations and the limits of the powers of international courts, including those of the European Court of Human Rights (hereafter ECtHR), turn around the aims of achieving legal certainty, ensuring legitimacy and justice, and avoiding conflicting obligations which may emanate from different regimes of international law. The chapter reflects on these aims from the perspective of consent as the common basis of the main sources of international law, as listed in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. Proceeding from the case law of the ECtHR, the chapter explores how the recent work of the International Law Commission conceives the role of consent in respect of the main sources of international law, and whether the jurisprudence of the ECtHR remains within the framework of general international law so enunciated.

This book will have two primary aims of analysis: the migration of Flemings and their settlement. The first will be to identify systems and build models of migratory movements within a long-term perspective, i.e. understanding migration paths and causes, networks, strategies and migrants’ personalities. The second will focus on what is commonly known as ‘integration’, that is, the immigrants’ settlement, acculturation and acquisition of their social, economic and political position in the host country. In addition to a detailed treatment of these two aims, the book attempts to evaluate the economic impact of the immigrant community on a specific industry. I will argue that the success of the immigrants was not solely reflected in the rise of their average earnings, but also in the fact that their skills and human capital acquired prior to emigration contributed to the development of the English textile industry in the fourteenth century.

This book has examined the impact of the immigrant community on the English economy and the development of its cloth industry. The main hypothesis was to prove that Flemish immigrants had an influence on the development of the English textile industry, which grew exponentially from the mid fourteenth century. While several scholars have previously claimed that the number of textile workers from the Low Countries had probably not been higher than 200, we have seen throughout the book that at least 1,500 artisans immigrated to England between 1351 and 1381. This study has also gone beyond economic questions and touched upon the issues of social integration and cultural influence as well.

For much of its history The Magic Flute has posed source problems. Some single out literary antecedents drawn from a variety of genres; others emphasize social and cultural influences. To see Mozart’s last opera instead as a synthetic, exploratory work questions whether these different readings are necessarily at odds with each other. As Goethe suggested, the work seems to offer different readings to different audiences. Gernot Gruber has distinguished “causal-historical” readings of the opera, which ground themselves in its cultural-political world, and “metahistorical” ones, which favor the abstract, the mythic, or the universally human. These categories may themselves complement rather than compete with each other.