Sir George Downing first served under the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell as diplomat in the Dutch Republic. Following the Restoration of Charles II in 1660 he transferred his allegiance to the new regime and was re-appointed to the post in The Hague. This period was characterized by fierce trade rivalry, which formed the background to the mid-century Anglo-Dutch wars. His defence of English commercial interests against the Dutch was crucial to his development as one of EnglandÂ’s leading mer...

The premise that underlies this volume is that there are strong interconnections between wonder, education, and human flourishing. And more specifically, that wonder can make a significant difference to how well one's education progresses and how well one's life goes. The contributors to this volume - both senior, well-known and beginning researchers and students of wonder - variously explore aspects of these connections from philosofphical, empirical, theoretical and practical perspectives. ...

In the twenty-first century, terms such as globalization, global, and world function as key words at the cusp of new frontiers in both historical writing and literary criticism. Practitioners of these disciplines may appear to be long time intimate lovers when seen from pre and early modern time periods, only to divorce with the coming of Anglophone world history in the twenty-first century. In recent years, works such as Martin Puchner’s The Written World, Maya Jasanoff’s The Dawn Watch,...

The task of ending famine in India was taken up by many at the beginning of the twentieth century. Only decades earlier, famine in India had been believed to be a necessary evil. Now it was the reason for the increasing activities of doctors, nutritionists, social reformers, agricultural experts, missionaries, anti-colonial activists and colonial administrators, all involved in temporary relief and finding permanent solutions to famine.

Parvin Etesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every year in Iran and beyond. Etesami is the only female poet who has remained part of the daily lives of people in her society for about a century. Her poetry appears in school curricula both before and after the Revolution of 1979. People use her poetry on social media, particularly in critical times. I...

Awards shape careers, make research visible, and create role models. They provide evidence of prestige and credit and play a key role in evaluating individual scientists. Nevertheless, the understanding of prize cultures in science has remained surprisingly superficial. This book explores the prize cultures of the most famous scientific award worldwide: the Nobel Prize. It contributes to modern approaches in history and sociology of science that focus on the social context of scientific pract...

The book outlines a dramatic history of the failed liberalization of Japanese private law during the Meiji era. Once Japan overthrew the shogunate and fully opened up to contact with the world, modernization of the backward country and its fragmented customary legal system became a crucial objective of the new ruling elites. The initiated codification of law included the drafting of the first Civil Code, designed to revolutionize the traditional societal ties in Japan. The legal project, seem...

'Bodies beyond Binaries' advances the historiographical debate around the body in colonial and postcolonial Asia. Opening new research avenues that go beyond the binaries that have sometimes permeated previous scholarly contributions, this book explores not just the direct colonial encounter, but also wider global interconnections and flows involved in the making of knowledge, cultural constructions, and ‘techniques’ of the body.

Throughout the volume, critical concepts such as gender, s...