In the 1940s and 1950s, the concepts of surplus labor, disguised unemployment, and underemployment emerged as key tools for thinking about economic development in the emerging “Third World.” This article examines how these concepts were developed and debated in Egypt, a country that was at the forefront of postcolonial planning efforts internationally. To this end, the article examines the statistical construction of the “labor problem” and the way it shaped competing visions of economic development among national, colonial, and international actors. Using a variety of sources—including Egyptian government archives, documents from the British Foreign Office, and the International Labour Organization—the article contributes to the global history of development and quantification, and contributes to the scholarship on Nasserism in Egypt.

Scholars have debated Esteban Montejo ever since the publication of Biografía de un cimarrón (1966). This article analyses hitherto unexamined documentary records of Montejo’s participation in Cuban cinema, which illustrate how Montejo and cinematographers mutually constructed narratives of slavery, revolution and African-inspired death. Studies of Cuban revolutionary cinema have barely investigated the role of ‘informants’ in the process of film production, as most scholars continue to place film directors centre stage. This article shows how social actors engaged in memory work to shape the structures of Cuban history within an ‘audiovisual interface’. It takes its cue from scholars who have highlighted how Black Caribbean subjects engaged with the means of historical production, arguing that Montejo historicised his experiences with the archival tools of the revolutionary state but beyond a politics of national liberation.

This article offers the first critical edition of and philological commentary on a previously unpublished prefatory text (Ἕτερον προοίμιον) transmitted under the name of Theophilos Korydalleus and found in over forty-five manuscripts of his Aristotelian Logic. It examines the status, content, and manuscript transmission of this brief philosophical treatise, which has hitherto been neglected in favour of the more extensive prologue printed in the 1729 edition. Drawing on new manuscript evidence, particularly a marginal scholion by Iakovos Argeios (Add MS 7143, British Library), the study argues that the Ἕτερον προοίμιον constitutes the authentic preface by Korydalleus himself, whereas the longer prologue should be attributed to his disciple and successor Ioannes Karyophylles. This attribution, if accepted, sheds light on the process of textual interpolation and ideological appropriation within the Patriarchal Academy of Constantinople during the late seventeenth century. The study situates the controversy over the two prologues within the broader intellectual and political conflict between the Korydallean tradition, represented by Karyophylles, and the faction aligned with Alexander Mavrokordatos. By highlighting the interplay between manuscript transmission, authorship, and institutional power, the article contributes to ongoing efforts to reassess the contours of post-Byzantine philosophical education and the editorial challenges posed by early modern Greek Aristotelianism.

Rural schools in China have long been in a state of underdevelopment. Studies have mainly addressed this issue from the perspective of rural–urban structural inequality, while neglecting the cultural processes that lead to inequality reproduction. Through the lens of cultural production, this study analyses qualitative data gathered in Gongshui county in central China, revealing how rural teachers and parents construct a negative perception of rural schools, evoked by devalued meanings associated with schools’ physical appearance, teaching staff characteristics and academic performance. Influenced by the discourse on rural inferiority, teachers and parents have cultivated a collective identity of becoming “less” rural and adopt strategies to disassociate themselves from rural education and community. Their cultural production of “bad” rural schools perpetuates and reinforces the underdevelopment of rural schools. This study draws attention to the cultural misconceptions surrounding rurality and the cultural processes by which educational inequalities are produced and reproduced in rural areas, both in China and globally.

Using new interpretations of oral traditions written in older documents, this article changes the origin of complex societies and larger kingdoms. Showing that the Kingdom of Kongo, presently believed to be the origin of large kingdoms actually achieved it status by conquering an existing kingdom, called Mpemba, the author reassigns both the date and origin point of kingdom level polities there. The author further points to new interpretations of documentary evidence to demonstrate that Mwene Muji and Kulembembe, located to the east and south of Kongo were also early large scale polities at a date as early as Kongo.

US control over the Panama Canal symbolised Washington’s dominance in Latin America. The Torrijos–Carter Treaties of 1977, concluding years of negotiations, marked a turning point by transferring control over the Canal to Panama. This work focuses on the crucial May 1977 round of negotiations, a pivotal yet underexplored period, whose outcome laid the foundation for the treaties, addressing key issues such as control over the Canal Zone and the neutrality of the Canal. This study addresses gaps in the existing literature through newly available archival sources, offering a more detailed understanding of the negotiations that shaped the future of the Panama Canal.

This paper provides a historiographical periodization of China’s Long 1980s (1978–1992) by conceptualizing its political and intellectual contexts and illustrating the reformism–conservatism dichotomy across key events throughout this period. The identification of China’s Long 1980s not only illuminates China’s policy trajectories and ideological landscape back then and ever since but also enriches the global scholarship of modernity, Marxism and 20th-century communist experiences.

John Evelyn (1620–1706), in Tyrannus, or, the mode in a discourse of sumptuary lawes (1661), decried the foreign fashions that threatened the English economy and symbolized Restoration extravagance. He supposedly instilled these beliefs in his daughter Mall (1665–85), with whom he co-authored the Mundus muliebris: or, the ladies dressing-room unlock’d (1690), a remarkable satire that expressed contempt at the frivolous new modes of apparel adopted by elite women. Yet, incongruously, many of these same ridiculed styles appear in the family’s accounts and correspondence. Indeed, the purchasing habits of Evelyn’s wife, Mary (1635–1709), and daughters reveal a firm commitment to maintaining a fashionable appearance. This article recovers the unexplored attitudes of the Evelyn women towards clothing consumption and the varied ways they maintained their wardrobes. A close reading of the Mundus muliebris alongside the family’s accounts, bills, and correspondence reveals the seminal, paradoxical role of dress as highly contentious yet socially ubiquitous. Through its biographical framework, the article highlights how private consumption practices within elite households like that of the Evelyns challenge the prevalence of published narratives attacking elite women’s fashion. In turn, it reveals the dangers of taking these polemical texts at face value.