In the late Roman empire, the papacy’s endorsement of marriage as a divine institution was already explicita. From the mid-fifth century, fundamental importance was attached to the signification by marriage of Christ’s union of the Church, a value shaping the social practice of marriage, underpinning the creation in Roman Catholicism of a marriage system unique in the history of literate societies, one which banned both polygamy and divorce. More flexible laws limited marriage within the “forbidden degrees” of relationship. The aim was to foster social cohesion. These rules could be changed, or dispensed with, in individual cases. Marriage was made by consent, and only from the Council of Trent was the presence of a priest required. Christianity in general and papal law in particular slowly transformed the relationship between slavery and marriage.

From the siege of Phyle, during the winter of 404, until the ascent of the Acropolis in the fall of the following year, several fighting communities had succeeded one another under Thrasybulus’ direction, reconstituting little by little, as if in ripples, the whole of the Athenian community. The city’s mantle – to refer to the Platonic image again – was, however, far from being unified and homogeneous at the end of the civil war. Torn and patched back together, its seams were visible, and the political life of the initial years of the fourth century made them periodically reappear. The memory of these events reflected these struggles: In the aftermath of the civil war, various accounts coexisted and contradicted each other, before being replaced, during the fourth century, by a univocal civic account. There is every reason to believe that Thrasybulus tried, in the aftermath of the democratic restoration in 403, to put the memory of his epic journey on public display. However, just as he did not succeed in imposing himself durably in public life after 403. Thrasybulus lost the battle of history and memory by failing to impose his own account of the events in Athens – and this is most certainly what ultimately explains why he got left out of ancient sources.

This chapter uses the investment facilitation index (IFI) to map the adoption of over 100 investment facilitation measures in more than 140 countries. The study finds a wide variation in investment facilitation frameworks across and within world regions and income groups, with measures related to internal and external cooperation less frequently adopted in low-income countries. Few countries have well-functioning single-window mechanisms, and focal points are either completely missing or lacking many important functions. The study highlights the importance of binding multilateral commitments and support structures for implementing investment facilitation reforms in countries of lower income levels, as foreseen in the nascent Investment Facilitation for Development Agreement. The findings suggest potential for regional and international initiatives through peer-learning and sharing of best practices to improve investment facilitation frameworks worldwide.

This chapter examines the relationship between medicine and the papacy in the Middle Ages. It considers the historiographical debate amongst historians regarding whether popes were primarily adversaries to or advocates of the study and evolution of medicine. Focusing on the Avignon popes and their courts, it suggests that these individuals and their spaces increasingly became cultural centres for the production, transmission, and consumption of medical ideas and practices throughout the course of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. With the rise of medicine as a profession – and the sociocultural value this process bestowed on its practice – a pope’s patronage of medical activities granted prestige both to his court and to his beneficiaries.

The papacy’s long-standing entanglements with the twin disciplines of astronomy and astrology can be summarized along three thematic strands. One revolves around the ecclesiastical calendar and the astronomical exigencies of the reckoning of Easter, whose historical ramifications range from late antique Easter controversies to the Gregorian reform of the calendar (1582) and the beginnings of the Vatican Observatory. Another is the more general role of popes as patrons of astronomical research as well as their more anomalous involvement in scientific censorship during the cosmological controversies of the early modern period, as exemplified by the trial against Galileo Galilei (1616/33). A third is the complex relationship between the Roman Curia and astrology, which includes episodes of patronage as much as instances of sharp anti-divinatory legislation, with the latter culminating in the trial against Orazio Morandi (1630).

When and how did the Schism between the Western Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Churches take place? The West commonly associates it with an incident in 1054 CE. Of the many points of difference and dispute between East and West in 1054, only two remain current: the ultimate theological authority of either ecumenical councils or the papacy, and the West’s insertion of the filioque (“and the Son”) into the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 CE. This chapter discusses both the origin of the filioque and the subsequent rise of monarchic papal authority in the West. The insertion of the filioque is sometimes incorrectly attributed to the Third Council of Toledo (589 CE), but it was definitively added to the creed by the Carolingians at a council in Aachen in 809 CE in close association with Charlemagne’s claim to be the only legitimate Roman emperor, and that change in the creed prevailed despite opposition at the time by Pope Leo III.

This chapter explores why the European Union (EU), which was not one of the original promoters of the Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) agenda in the World Trade Organization (WTO), has become one of its most vocal supporters. We argue that embracing investment facilitation serves EU strategic goals of reviving multilateralism, bringing the fractious US–China relation back into the fold of multilateral disciplines, and assert itself as a leader in the field of sustainable development. After first tracing the emergence of the investment facilitation agenda at the international level, we then highlight the puzzling character of the EU’s embrace of the multilateral IFD agenda, before showing that changing institutional and (geo)political conditions provided the EU with a window of opportunity to act in 2017. In the last part, we briefly discuss the key elements shaping the EU’s preferences in the contemporary IFD negotiations and as well as the factors shaping its capacity to become a rule-maker.

This chapter examines the nonviolent projects of ‘Pride of the Afghans’ Indian independence activist Bacha Khan. It engages both with his personal and institutional praxis within their Pashtun cultural context and with the historiographical challenges posed both by his suppression by the state and his proximity to Mahatma Gandhi.

When I open an Austen novel, I feel pleased and expectant. But I realise that for Emma I’m now beginning another chapter with ‘uneasiness’. It must be a sort of tic that happily passes as I go on writing. Still, for the moment there it is. I revere Emma but something disturbs me about the heroine and her novel.

Anyone who fears she might be an interloper, the not-quite-proper arrival in a new place will understand my point. Mrs Elton dropped abruptly into Highbury: loud Mrs Elton, not quite ‘a lady’.

As a child I changed schools incessantly before landing at that Bastille of a boarding school. As an adult, I moved jobs and continents at a similar wild rate. So I suffered not once but repeatedly the transplanting Mrs Elton declared ‘one of the evils of matrimony’. I know what it is to be out of place, to get it wrong in language, gesture, opinion and intellectual notions. To overcome the awkward, inevitable deep-down shyness in school, academia or new town, what is there to do but try to assert yourself and jiggle the old regime to make it let you in. No chance of course, you’ll overegg the pudding. But it makes you feel – occasionally – a whole lot better, like a perky mouse fidgeting among complacent cats.

Screening for breast cancer using mammography is one of the most common medical tests for women aged 50 and older. In the United States, many protocols initiate mammography at ages 40 or 45. Although cancer screening tests are widely advocated, some systematic reviews find little evidence supporting the most common screening tests. Cancer screening clearly identifies lesions at an earlier stage. Yet, when evaluated against cancer-specific or all-cause mortality, screening is less likely to be associated with longer life of higher quality of life. This chapter reviews a series of biases, including lead time bias and length bias, that may explain the discrepancy between enthusiasm for cancer screening and clinical trials that have consistently failed to show benefit. We also review potential harms of screening, such as false positive results, unnecessary biopsies, and anxiety. We conclude that more studies are needed, particularly investigations that include a heterogeneous mix of studies participants.

Humanity’s increasing reliance on AI and robotics is driven by compelling narratives of efficiency in which the human is a poor substitute for the extraordinary computational power of machine learning, the creative competences of generative AI as well as the speed, accuracy and consistency of automation in so many spheres of human activity. Indeed, AI is increasingly becoming the core technological foundation of many contemporary societies. Most thinking on how to manage the downside risks to humanity of this seismic societal shift is set out in a direct fault-based relationship such as the innovative EU AI Act which is by far the most comprehensive political attempt to locate (or deter) those directly responsible for AI-generated harm. I argue that while such approaches are vital for combating injustice exacerbated by AI and robotics, too little thought goes into political approaches to the structural dynamics of AI’s impact on society. By way of example, I examine the UK ‘pro-innovation’ approach to AI governance and explore how it fails to address the structural injustices inherent in increasing AI usage.