The dataset discussed in this chapter is coinage, specifically the first coinage minted in the Aegean Basin. The start of this chapter considers to what extent coinage was first used as either an economic or a political tool, and, therefore, whether any patterns in the dataset will reveal more about political or economic networks. In presenting continuities of the dataset using a network analytical model, this chapter illustrates how the spread of coinage across the Aegean from Ionian innovators is indicative of a pattern in the spread of technology. This pattern is juxtaposed with the distribution of amphoras pattern, indicating that there is a qualitatively similar economic pattern, albeit separated with a large time-lag. This pattern is a useful reminder that different types of economic network laid the foundations for one another, and that material evidence may not always be contemporary with the formation of networks.

The chapter examines Churchill’s role on the international stage and his summit diplomacy with Roosevelt and Stalin. Faced with the surprise collapse of France in 1940, he was forced to seek new partners, assiduously courting the United States while seizing the opportunity of an alliance with the Soviet Union. The result was that he had to juggle the conflicting demands of Roosevelt and Stalin, embarking on strenuous personal diplomacy in the face of declining British influence. The chapter reviews the key decisions of the major meetings before looking at their postwar legacy in Churchill’s attempts to advance European reconciliation and his ultimately unsuccessful bid to resume summitry with the Soviet Union.

Chapter 4 looks at Mendonça’s journey to Portugal and Spain, and the network he established. It examines his education in Braga, his appointment as an attorney of the Confraternity of Our Lady Star of the Negroes in Lisbon and Toledo and the alliances he formed with the New Christians in Lisbon, in particular the Mesquita family. Then it interrogates his association with Indigenous Americans in Toledo. It presents the period 1670–1681 in Lisbon as crucial for his compact with the Apostolic Notary in Lisbon, Gaspar Mesquita, and his connection with ‘the New Christian question’ in Lisbon and the Atlantic. Their search for freedom is examined in relation to the denial of enslaved Africans’ freedom. The unity of the regional confederation in West Central Africa shaped Mendonça’s engagement with the freedom of enslaved Africans in Angola, Brazil, Spain and Portugal. It also served as a springboard for his networking with the Indigenous people and New Christians in the Atlantic, Portugal and Spain. Engaging with this dialogue provides a better understanding of how those whose liberty had been denied sought to overcome this by allying with different constituencies in the Atlantic region.

Chapter 3 examines how the exile of the Ndongo royals to Salvador and Rio de Janeiro was aligned with power struggles in Luanda. The House of Ndongo was led by a generation that rejected the Portuguese alliance that its predecessors had endorsed. The new generation broke away from this alliance when Portugal was gaining independence from Spain. The chapter focuses on the royals’ lives in Brazil, on what they saw there of the treatment of enslaved Africans and Indigenous people, how their stay was shaped by African slave communities, Black Brotherhoods, and how these experiences shaped Mendonça’s discourse in the Vatican. It examines the case of runaway slaves and connects it with those of Quilombo dos Palmares. It looks at how this community forged a political and economic alliance with Cristovão de Burgos, a judge in the High Court of Salvador. Palmares provoked the governing authorities in Bahia to reconsider their strategy, which led them to send the royals to Rio. The authorities in Brazil feared that the exiled royals’ status could help fortify the enslaved fugitives’ community, which would endanger Portuguese economic interests.

Focusing on the deployment of Goryeo troops to China in 1354, this chapter begins by tracing contemporary developments within the Yuan, which shaped the broader geopolitical environment in which the Goryeo regime operated. It then examines the choices Wang Gi and his court made when confronted with the largest military mobilization in East Asia in decades. The chapter concludes with a discussion of what the Yuan dynasty’s southern campaign likely revealed to Wang Gi and his advisers about military and political dynamics within the Great Khan’s realm and what they meant for the Goryeo court. This chapter’s narrative details convey a sense of dynamics within the Great Khan’s regime, which in turn sheds light on the Goryeo–Yuan alliance and Wang Gi’s place in the world.

As a boy, what was Wang Gi's experience of the Mongol empire? How did he and the people around him understand the ties between his family and the Chinggisids, between the Goryeo and Yuan polities? Wang Gi left no memoir of his childhood, and detailed – in fact any – accounts of his first years are vanishingly rare. What follows is a reconstruction of some key structural elements that would shape Wang Gi’s life – his family’s relationship with the Chinggisid ruling house, the broad network of personal relationships between the Goryeo and Mongol courts, and the place of the Goryeo dynasty in the wider Mongol empire.

This chapter is organized into four sections. The first traces Zhu Yuanzhang’s rise, including his consolidation of power over regional polities and his military campaigns against the Yuan court. The second section examines Wang Gi’s relationship with the new master of China, and the third section explores Wang Gi’s ties to the Yuan court after its relocation to the steppe. The final section considers Wang Gi’s 1370 military strikes into Liaodong, a region strategically vital to the Yuan, Ming, and Goryeo courts, in a time of rapidly shifting alliances.

The Chinggisids’ retreat northward from Daidu in 1368, the loss of nearly all their Chinese territory, and Zhu Yuanzhang’s rise to dominance posed monumental choices for Wang Gi. What would he do about his family’s century-old alliance with the Chinggisid ruling house? If Wang Gi remained true to Toghan-Temür, what – if any – alterations would he make to the Goryeo–Yuan alliance? If he abandoned his family’s long-standing ally and lord, how would he justify his action at home and abroad? If he offered his allegiance to Zhu Yuanzhang’s fledgling Ming dynasty, what would be the terms of the relationship?

This chapter looks at the Yuan dynasty in a time of growing chaos. It undertook distant military campaigns, major relief efforts, ambitious river projects, a new legal code, and massive dynastic historical compilations. Envoys like Marignolli came to the Yuan court from the other side of world, a clear reminder of the Great Yuan’s international standing and ties to other lands. If all this evidenced formidable state capacity, Korean observers also saw acute problems: widespread drought and flooding that led to famine and occasionally even cannibalism, virulent banditry that blurred readily into revolt, and court intrigue that shook vast political patronage networks and threw dynastic policy into tumult.

In times of crisis and change, what becomes of the vast and complex network of alliances that undergird all empires? Rather than focus on the major powers or “Great States,” the most common way to think about the rise and fall of empires, here is the story of “the little guy” or the lesser power, the experiences of the Wang Gi and his court as ally first to the Mongols and later to the Ming dynasty of China. The unsettled times threw up both danger and opportunity, and far from passively reacting to the actions of the Great Khan and the Ming emperor, Wang Gi and his advisers actively pursued their interests through diplomacy, military action, and domestic reform. Their efforts failed as often as they succeeded, and if their story reveals the underappreciated initiative and influence of alliances’ junior partners, it also makes clear that stark imbalances of power cannot be waved away by invoking the agency of lesser states.

This chapter analyzes political developments at the Goryeo court during the 1340s, the decade before Wang Gi took the throne. It pays particular attention to how connections to the Yuan dynasty figured in Goryeo politial dynamics and how the young Wang Gi may have understood contemporary events.

This chapter revisits Wang Gi’s measures in the summer of 1356 with attention to two points. First, what do they reveal about the Goryeo–Yuan alliance? Second, and inversely, how does attention to the broader developments of Chinggisid rule in East Asia offer insight into Wang Gi’s actions? As was true in previous chapters, this chapter argues that only through close attention to developments in the Yuan dynasty is it possible to fully appreciate the perceptions, motivations, and strategies of Wang Gi and Toghan-Temür. For this reason, the chapter includes more detail of local events in Yuan territories than is commonly found in histories of Goryeo–Yuan relations.

In the decade from 1357 to 1367, the Goryeo–Yuan alliance reached an inflection point, as mounting instability in the Yuan dynasty meant both steepening costs and broadening opportunities for the Goryeo dynasty. This chapter traces three developments: (a) the Red Turban invasions of Goryeo from 1359 to 1362, (b) the Yuan court’s abortive effort in 1362–1363 to depose Wang Gi, and (c) the rapid expansion of relations between Wang Gi’s court and regional powerholders emerging out of the tottering Yuan realm.

This chapter looks at the earliest years of Wang Gi’s rule, circa 1351–1353, and pursues two interrelated questions. First, what was Wang Gi’s experience as a Yuan ally in a time of increasing chaos? Second, how did Wang Gi’s place in the empire influence his rule at home? These two questions in fact run through the next several chapters. Rather than attempt an exhaustive account of the 1351–1353 period, this chapter focuses on two moments. The first is Wang Gi’s first year on the throne, when the fledgling king strove to eliminate potential rivals and secure legitimacy within Goryeo. The second is a puzzling, abortive coup in 1352 by one of Wang Gi’s close advisers who had attended him in Daidu.

This chapter begins by quickly reviewing conditions at the Ming and Yuan courts circa 1370–1374, moves on to Wang Gi’s relationships with each court, and concludes with a look at Wang Gi’s efforts to project royal influence in the near abroad, Liaodong and Tamna, in a time of tectonic geopolitical change.

This chapter shows how Templer recognised that the MCP’s October 1951 Resolutions had shifted the strategic initiative to government, but also that it had increased the importance of winning hearts and minds. It shows how he increased both punishment an