Fictional junctions developed in parallel complexity to passenger junctions on the rails in the 1860s and 1870s as multiplot novels expanded into series. Chapter 3 examines Dickens’s co-authored collection, Mugby Junction (1866), and Anthony Trollope’s Palliser Novels (1864–1879), alongside traffic management systems operating on railways of the period. This chapter provides a cohesive reading of Mugby Junction, a collection whose significance to railway culture is usually determined with reference only to Dickens’s contributions. The chapter examines how form complements content in Mugby Junction, as each short story in the collection examines a different branch or main line. Anthony Trollope, by contrast, offers relatively little direct contemplation of the railway aside from a memorable scene set at Tenway Junction, but he uses railway logistics to manage his plot lines. What emerges from this long-form multiplot work is Trollope’s tendency to re-run certain narrative configurations over the course of the series (love triangles, politics, finance), with very minor adjustments. Through this, we can begin to understand how even the most apparently rigid systems change over time.

Chapter 6 explores the downfall of the Kingdom of Alania. It argues that Alania split into multiple competing princedoms during the twelfth century, and that this development cannot be blamed on Mongol or Qipchaq invasions. Rather, increasing aristocratic competition led to intercommunal conflicts, made more acute by the ability of Alan aristocrats to ally with Qipchaq nobles and bring in allied Qipchaq troops. It concludes with a brief overview of Alania during and after the Mongol invasions of the North Caucasus in 1238–40.

Chapter 2 outlines the initial stages of the Christianisation of Alania. Instead of being the result of a top-down conversion by Byzantine missionaries in the 910s and 920s, it argues that Christianising styles of adornment, burial and worship were gradually adopted by Northwest Caucasian communities in the eighth and ninth centuries because they fit in with pre-existing perceptions of foreignising styles as socially prestigious. These styles were ultimately appropriated by the Alan kings in the 880s through a royal conversion with Abasgian assistance.

Chapter 3 examines the reason why claiming the ‘power of the foreign’ was an effective strategy in the North Caucasus. In order to do so, it reconstructs the politics of tenth-century Alania through an analysis of al-Masʿūdī’s Murūj al-dhahab (332–6/943–7) and analogic evidence. It argues that an aristocrat who could display that they had access to ‘the foreign’ could plausibly claim to be an impartial mediator in disputes between relatively autonomous sub-communities (as), which were the principal building blocks of North Caucasian society.

Chapter 4 returns to the theme of Christianisation. It argues that Christianising styles were widely adopted in tenth- and eleventh-century Alania, having an impact which lasted until the early modern period. Moreover, this widespread acceptance of Christianising styles allowed the kings of Alania to claim that they possessed a particularly potent ‘power of the foreign’ as a result of their recognition by the Byzantine and Georgian courts and ecclesiastical hierarchies. As a consequence, they were able to effectively claim a paramount status among Central North Caucasian aristocrats and establish a hereditary dynasty.

Chapter 1 addresses the geographical and economic context in which the the Kingdom of Alania emerged, and explains why this happened. It identifies the core territory of the kings of Alania as lying in the Upper Kuban region of modern Karachay-Cherkessia and eastern Krasnodar Krai. It also suggests that the Kingdom of Alania emerged because an aristocratic lineage from this region was able to leverage their transregional connections to extract recognition from the Khazar Khaqanate, granting them a ‘power of the foreign’ that no other aristocrats in the region could match.

The Conclusion summarises the previous chapters and their approach. It concludes that Alania should be reintegrated into the historiographical mainstream of Mediterranean and West Eurasian studies. Alania’s example demonstrates that a state-centred approach to political complexity cannot be assumed as the norm; rather, the adoption of state institutions needs to be explicitly explained.

Chapter 5 examines in greater depth the relationships between the kings of Alania and the Byzantine and Georgian courts, concentrating on the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. It argues that during this period, increased connectivity between North Caucasian, Georgian and Byzantine elites led to the formation of a single, if uneven, network of elite power in the Black Sea region. While this allowed for the maintenance and intensification of the Alan kings’ access to the ‘power of the foreign’, it also allowed for other North Caucasian elites to access the Georgian and Byzantine courts. This threatened to undermine the exclusivity of access to ‘the foreign’ that underpinned the Alan kings’ rule, leading to intense status competition between elites.