A sustained period of Conservative government would normally be expected to usher in constitutional stability. But the reverse was largely true for the period 2010–24. During these years constitutional controversies were rarely far from the news, partly thanks to deliberately planned changes, but mostly due to radically shifting conventions and political behaviour. Across the time period, the direction of change was also very far from consistent. The initial coalition years were marked primarily by pressures towards greater constitutional pluralism, though Liberal Democrat reform ambitions were often held back by Cameron’s Conservatives. Later, any prospect of calm under single-party government was soon punctured by the pressures of Brexit. This eventually brought into question almost every aspect of the UK’s constitutional arrangements, and inflicted painful splits within the Conservative Party over questions of governance. In particular, Boris Johnson’s populist approach was characterised by wholesale disregard for constitutional norms, and highlighted vulnerabilities in the UK’s key democratic arrangements which few would previously have anticipated. If one commonality can be discerned across this fourteen-year period of constitutional extremes, it is the largely unconservative nature of policy.

Chapter 4 discusses the episodes’ setting and layout within the space of the church. It examines chronological, liturgical, and didactic devices, coming to the conclusion that there is a fixed core of episodes that is repeated in each church while the remaining miracles always vary. Identifying this lack of a single codified program is at the heart of both Chapters 3 and 4, and it suggests a greater fluidity and flexibility than we are used to ascribing to Byzantine art.

During the Middle Ages, miracles played a crucial role in theology and propaganda, mirroring the needs, struggles, and desires of every social class. During the political upheaval and religious fervor of the late Byzantine period, written and visual accounts of miracles – comprising New Testament narratives, healings performed by saints, and newer miracles – start proliferating in mural decorations and in historiographical, hagiographical, and poetic texts. Building on the underexplored corpus of visual depictions of Christ’s miracles as recounted in the New Testament, this book argues that miracle iconography offers important evidence of the political imperatives of its patrons, the spiritual needs of its audience, and the overall construction of divinity in the early Palaiologan period.

In this final chapter, we consider how history might judge these years of Conservative governments. Our focus, as laid out in the Introduction, is: what were the achievements of these years? Were there mitigating factors? What is the overall verdict?

Why is yet another book about Hitler necessary? Has not Hitler, the Third Reich, and National Socialism already been sufficiently mapped and described so that another book about these historical phenomena cannot but be superfluous? Judging by the constant stream of new books on the topic every year, the obvious answer is “no.” There does not seem to be a limit for the number of books that can be produced and consumed. The market appears to be insatiable. Granted, not every book written has been either necessary, or helpful when it comes to increasing our understanding of this part of our common history. Nonetheless, there may be a more interesting question to be answered here, namely: Are there aspects of this topic that have not yet been given quite the attention in the literature that they deserve? The answer to this question is an equally obvious “yes.” There are many issues and aspects of National Socialism that are in need of further research. Among them is the topic of this book: Hitler’s and National Socialism’s relationship to the central figure of Christianity – Jesus Christ.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler presented his Damascus Road experience, and in doing so he put himself on a par with the real founder of Christianity, Paul of Tarsus. Both narratives include a period of temporary blindness, a highly symbolic theme in the Christian tradition. Both stories contain a conversation with some divine entity. In Paul’s case, God speaks to him from the outside in the form of a vision. In Hitler’s case, God, in the form of Hitler’s own conscience, thunders his commands from the inside. In Mein Kampf, it is not explicitly said that this was a vision per se, but newspaper reports from 1923 stated exactly that. It is very likely that these reports were based on interviews with Hitler himself or someone close to him and therefore represented the view that Hitler wished to give of himself. This obviously served as a propaganda tool as well. Both in the case of Paul and in the case of Hitler, these voices are said to have urged them to let go of the past and present, and instead focus their energy on the future.

The concluding chapter provides a summary and offers fundamental considerations on the problem of Russia’s dependence on fossil fuels.

Chapter 1 sets the critical stage for the exponential increase of the iconography of Christ’s miracles by providing the contemporary sociopolitical, historical, and religious context. I focus specifically on the results of the shift from the Unionist policy of Andronikos II’s father, Michael VIII, to the empowerment of the Orthodox Church pursued by Andronikos himself. Miracles play an intriguing role in the theological debates and justifications for the reinstatement of Orthodoxy under Andronikos. The period of religious fervor and intellectual flourishing that the emperor enabled during his long reign formed the fertile environment in which the new miracle iconography could develop.

Any fair evaluation of the Conservative effect (2010–14) must be cognisant of the context. Tom Egerton’s chapter will place the Conservative premierships in the six external shocks Britain faced, beginning with the Great Financial Crash and the Eurozone Crisis, before the impact of Brexit (and a debate over its external and structural causes), Covid, the Russo-Ukrainian War and the inflation crisis. How did each government succeed or fail in the face of compounding shocks? What opportunities and constraints emerged as a result? Only through an analysis of a decade of poly-crisis, and in the perspective of wider political change, can we make a conclusion on the question of ‘fourteen wasted years’.

This book has set out to examine the proliferation and development of Christ’s miracles in monumental decorations of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries in the Byzantine Empire.

Chapter 5 takes a step back and considers, individually and comprehensively, the eight Byzantine churches that housed Christ’s miracle cycles. Specifically, I examine how the overall iconographic program of each church impacted the inclusion of the miracle cycle. I ask who were the promulgators of this new iconographic program and what kind of audience we imagine viewing these scenes. By trying to answer these questions, this chapter defines the role played by the miracle cycle in the broader context of church decoration and patronage, leading to a claim of its distinctive status.

The fourteen years of Tory rule constitute a stunning missed opportunity to seize on one of Britain’s few internationally renowned assets – its creativity. The government did step in to save organisations from disaster during the pandemic; it did, early on, extend its successful system of tax credits from film and TV to other cultural forms. It did the beat drum for extending demographic opportunities, even if in its actions it did not follow through. What mattered at least as much as specific decisions in this latest Tory era, particularly the latter part under May, Johnson, Truss and Sunak, was the manner of government engagement. Many in the sector are demoralised, having to raise private funds while being disparaged by ministers.

From Brexit to the rise of China, the deterioration of the special relationship with the United States and the return of war to Europe in Ukraine, this chapter will explore how the UK’s position in the world has faced both challenges and opportunities over the last fourteen years. The analysis will focus on how different Conservative premierships used or wasted these global changes, and how it has affected UK foreign policy and Britain as a whole (particularly Brexit’s influence on domestic policy and politics).