This chapter explores the ways in which the Athenian Empire influenced and was influenced by the Peloponnesian War. First, it investigates the ways in which the Athenians made use of allied military resources, arguing that there was no formal system which governed this practice. The Athenians drew on allied manpower when it was convenient to do so, perhaps for punitive reasons, and perhaps as a way of encouraging or allowing visible demonstrations of loyalty to the Empire. The impact of military service on allied communities is hard to reconstruct, but it is likely that it was very unevenly felt: some states might have had little or no active involvement in the war; some might have lost significant proportions of their (male, fighting-age) populations. The second part of the chapter explores Athenian representations of allied military service. For the most part, the Athenians consistently under-represent the contributions made by allied states, or by individual allies. However, some changes in this approach might be visible in the final phase of the war and should perhaps be connected with a wider shift in Athens’ style of imperial leadership, one which becomes based less on coercive force and more on cooperation and concession.

Traditional accounts of the Allied grand strategic debates during World War II stress the divergence between the American and British approaches to waging war against the Axis. In these interpretations, Roosevelt, Churchill, and their military chiefs were the primary shapers of grand strategy and policy. However, this chapter argues these studies have focused too much on certain figures and have relatively marginalized others who played crucial roles in shaping these debates. One of those comparatively overlooked figures was Henry Stimson, who was a vital player on the American side in influencing the politics of US strategy and pushing it toward launching a cross-Channel invasion of France. The Joint Chiefs of Staff were often internally divided over how to win the war and struggled to influence policy accordingly. The lack of focused political coordination between the War Department and the JCS made it difficult to convince Roosevelt to open a second front in Western Europe, which opened the door to following the British Mediterranean strategy for defeating Germany, starting with the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa.

This chapter examines the crucial seven-year period between Stimson’s resignation as secretary of state in March 1933 and his return to the War Department in June 1940. Although Stimson did not anticipate he would ever return to Washington to serve in the federal government, some of his most important public service occurred when he was a private citizen in this period. Particularly, this chapter advances two critical arguments. The first is that Stimson had both a much wider definition of national security than most of his contemporaries did and came to those conclusions before nearly any other American leader or opinion maker. The second argument is that attempting to neatly define Stimson’s internationalism is difficult. Stimson borrowed ideas from the legalistic, moralistic, and New Deal-style categories of internationalism and repackaged them into his own fusion that called for US leadership to manage the world.

Nazism and war had devastated Berlin. The city was divided into different zones under Allied administration, but cooperation soon broke down. While the Soviets retained control over the central and eastern districts, the western sectors were administered by the Americans, British, and French. Following the Berlin blockade and airlift of 1948–49, the division of Berlin was effected with the foundation of the Federal Republic (FRG) in the west and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in the east. The two halves of the city began to diverge, with rebuilding under different ideological auspices in the 1950s. Growing discontent with an economically constrained and politically repressive system under communism meant that many East Germans were using crossing points that were still open within Berlin in order to escape via West Berlin to West Germany. The erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 sealed both the division of the city and the division between West and East Germany.

This chapter provides the historical background necessary to understand the book’s empirical analysis. It discusses the political decisions that led to the displacement of Germans and Poles at the end of WWII and challenges the assumption that uprooted communities were internally homogeneous. It then zooms in on the process of uprooting and resettlement and introduces data on the size and heterogeneity of the migrant population in postwar Poland and West Germany.

Chapter Four focuses on US compliance with international law. The perception of former officials was that US compliance with international law was robust. When asked about the reasons that the United States complies or does not comply with international law, the former officials’ responses tracked many of the factors they listed for states in general. The chapter then explores the interplay between law and policy, exploring how policymakers balance these competing concerns. Former officials were clear that while international law was generally followed, it was not always dispositive. Legal issues were considered as one factor among a variety of factors, essentially involving a cost–benefit analysis. The salient considerations driving compliance or noncompliance, as revealed in the interviews, appeared to be the nature of the national interest or policy at stake; the nature and significance of the international legal rule involved ethical considerations; the views of allies; the ambiguity or precision of the legal obligation; and the weight of domestic political and bureaucratic concerns. The chapter next examines factors that may affect policymaker perceptions, including party affiliation, and concludes with a description of instances where the United States either bent international law or complied scrupulously.

What makes diplomatic negotiation different from other negotiations is that it takes place between or among nation-states through their representatives, and the stakes are usually higher than those in a domestic context. In addition, while other types of negotiation tend to be mostly transactional, negotiating in diplomacy cannot be isolated from the overall relationship with the other party. A truly successful diplomatic negotiation is one that not only resolves an immediate problem, but ensures that the state of relations with the other side will serve one’s interests in the long run. That does not mean that ties must necessarily be close or friendly, as long as they are civil and respectful, and the countries can work together in the future. Another feature of negotiation that is essential in diplomacy is its ability to build a basis for empathy. It helps to convey one’s own motivations and interests directly, which can reduce misunderstanding, and it provides insight into the other side’s motivations and perceptions.

This chapter focuses on the experience of Hong Kong refugees in Macau. It addresses the role the British consulate in Macau played in refugee management and intelligence networks, explaining how the enclave was an important base and a connecting node for British operations. This chapter argues that Macau played an important supportive role to many in and from Hong Kong from late 1941 to the end of the war. It allowed for escapees to reach unoccupied China, for a great number of refugees to receive assistance, for intelligence to be gathered and for resistance activities to be coordinated. The chapter highlights the significant experience of colonial transplantation that allowed the British to keep a foothold in South China and facilitated the reoccupation of Hong Kong.

Chapter 7 discusses how trust can emerge in the general citizenry. Engaging with Danielle Allen’s iteration of “political friendship” and its critics, this chapter argues that a division of labour between the practices of “talking” and “shouting back” among the underprivileged, the oppressed, and their allies can counteract the social domination problem. Shouting back (aggressive civic disruption) makes it harder for the privileged and the dominant to claim ignorance about the persistence of injustices, while talking can promote trust between the underprivileged, the oppressed, and their allies on the one hand and “unwitting oppressors” and “softer complicit oppressors” on the other hand. Distinguishing among forms of talking, this chapter shows that the practice and revision of good manners should be the primary vehicle to cultivate trust. In addition, this chapter argues that allies should strive to “listen well” – to afford the underprivileged and the oppressed a sense of recognition when such recognition is all too rare, and to discourage unwitting oppressors and softer complicit oppressors from aligning politically with “harder complicit oppressors” and “proud oppressors.”

Chapter 5 shifts to the island colony of Singapore, where Australia’s Eighth AMF Division defended the island alongside British and local forces and volunteers in the weeks before its capitulation, suffering greatly as Japanese captives. The chapter describes the dispersal of camps at the fall of Singapore, following the fate of Australian and other Allied soldiers across an emergent camp geography. Its main aim is envisioning the entirety of the island as converted to an encampment through the distribution of Allied camps, including the dispersal of work camps in requisitioned domestic and institutional facilities, exploring how wartime defense and capitulation provided structures for contemporary citizenship.

In the Mekong Delta, in addition to directly fighting against the communist-led Resistance, the French also allied with semi-autonomous militias against the Resistance, particularly those associated with the Cao Dai and the Hoa Hao. A situational logic of alliance and opposition, understood by all participants, shaped the overarching "system." Within this system, both the French and the Resistance competed to co-opt smaller groups, from parastates to local militias, to their side, which in turn tried to establish their autonomy. This chapter looks at these allies, some of which were parastates, their funding, their economic bases, and their interactions. It gives particular attention to those affiliated with the Cao Dai (Pham Cong Tac, Trinh Minh The) and the Hoa Hao militias (Tran Van Soai, Ba Cut). It also examines the complexity of control at local levels, where in some villages, up to three different political actors, including the Vietnamese state, vied for dominance.

This chapter is the first of four chapters focused on the penteteric or Great Panathenaia, which took place every four years. It looks at how individuals participated in the procession, which conveyed the sacrificial animals, the peplos and other offerings to the Akropolis, and the sacrifices to Athena. The procession and attendant rituals included a multitude of different roles for various individuals and groups: Athenians, both male and female, were certainly represented, but so were other inhabitants, the metics and their daughters and delegations from the colonies and, in the later fifth century BC, the allies. Together, they made up the community of ‘all the Athenians’, who were celebrating the goddess and her deed against the Giants. These rituals repeated the festival’s stories and themes, which unified the rituals and linked them to the games.

This chapter focuses on the identities created for other residents (Athenian women and girls, male metics and their daughters and Athenian boys, beardless youths and ephebes) and non-residents (especially colonies and allies). In comparison to those of the male Athenians, the identities of other residents and non-residents of the city were not nearly as complex, in part because these other groups had limited opportunities for participation in the celebration. While the identities of Athenian boys, beardless youths and ephebes focused on their position as citizens-to-be or as the newest citizens who were prepared to fight for the city, the identities for the other groups focused on their service to the goddess. The participation of both non-residents and residents also marked them as members of the community of “all the Athenians” and allowed them to create identities as members of this group. International visitors had a significant role to play as excluded non-members who contrasted with members of the community. Thus, how one took part in the Great Panathenaia was instrumental in determining what it meant to be a member of “all the Athenians” who were celebrating the Great Panathenaia.

Britain and Italy were allied, at last. The London Treaty proved a diplomatic score and a double-edge sword for both.

Chapter 5 explores the politics and practices of Allied relief, which were characterised by continuous tensions between military strategies and humanitarian concerns. The British War Cabinet openly prioritised maintenance of the economic blockade, deferring all civilian relief until after the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. Eventually, the Allies and Germans agreed to allow limited relief supplies from neutral resources but only under conditions that would not upset military operations for either side. Throughout the crisis, political and military considerations determined the parameters of food relief. Due to the lengthy and detailed negotiation process, the main impact of the Allied contribution to famine relief took place only after hostilities had ended.

The final chapter opens with a discussion of the transformed nature of the war in the Mediterranean after the Axis surrender in Tunisia, where Axis maritime commitments had shrunk, yet remained substantial. The Allied focus on other in-theatre tasks, particularly the invasions of Sicily and mainland Italy, pushed anti-shipping operations into a side-line role. Yet there were times when they received greater focus, including the Axis evacuation of Sicily, and in the Aegean during 1943–44. An account of anti-shipping operations over the period in question shows that there were in fact very high quantities of sinkings at certain stages of the period in question. These contributed yet further to the overall shipping crisis, forcing the Axis to expedite the withdrawal from Sardinia, Corsica and many of their Aegean possessions. By late 1944, most of the territories reliant on maritime supply had been abandoned, and the anti-shipping campaign had been a key element in ensuring Allied victory in the Mediterranean.

While El Alamein represented an important defensive victory at the eastern fringe of the Mediterranean, joint Anglo-American landings in north-west Africa caused a transformation of the theatre. This shift to a truly Allied venture, where the war in North Africa was fought on two fronts, had consequent effects on Axis supply requirements. Anti-shipping operations continued to receive high priority throughout this period, resulting in a devastating 477 vessels of over 700,000 tons being sunk in five months. This ensured that the minimum level of supplies required by the Axis forces were not received. In fact, the losses were so devastating that the Axis came to lack the necessary shipping to even attempt shipping the required amounts in the first place. The chapter then offers a revolutionary new argument: that the period around October 1942 represented a tipping point towards collapse for the Axis position in the wider Mediterranean. The consistently high rates of sinkings had greatly eroded the base of available tonnage, and efforts to improve construction had failed. The attempts to fill the void with seized French tonnage were inadequate, and by early summer 1943 the Axis were acknowledging that maintaining positions such as Sardinia and Corsica was no longer possible, while retaining the Aegean islands and even Sicily were tenuous aims.