This chapter explores how Jews and the indigenous inhabitants came to see themselves as members of national communities. It begins with a description of “culture of nationalism” –– a collective belief in society that the assumptions that undergird nationalism are part of the natural order. It then describes how the indigenous inhabitants of Palestine and the Jews of mainly Eastern Europe, embedded within empires undergoing transformations that imbued them with structures associated with modern states, came to see themselves as a homogeneous grouping. In the case of the indigenous population of Palestine, that grouping was imperial in scope. The Jews of Eastern Europe, however, were “othered” by the majority community, and thus came to see themselves as a people apart.

The climate crisis – the worsening climate crisis described in Chapter 2 – and the failure of governments and other actors to govern it effectively are very largely a consequence of the pathologies of international relations, national politics and human nature described in Chapters 3–7. These interacting, overlapping and self-reinforcing pathologies are extraordinarily persistent because they have deep historical, institutional and psychosocial roots. What is more, they are premised on anachronistic assumptions and perceptions of the interests of the actors whose behaviors cause and exacerbate the climate crisis, and whose changed behaviors are needed to mitigate climate change. As such, alleviating the pathologies of climate governance requires a variety of prescriptions, as considered and outlined in Chapters 8 and 9. The prescriptions point to the types of policies and approaches to climate governance that will be required. This chapter outlines what some of those policies might look like and considers the potential prospects for climate governance going forward.

This chapter provides an overview of the debate surrounding the population of Athens in the Classical period, and the methodologies used to estimate it. It further summarizes some of the key social, economic, political, and religious groups and divisions in Classical Athenian society and how these interacted with each other and with questions of belonging and identity in the polis.

Hazards and disasters do not occur in a vacuum: they are guided by different preconditions and pressures, which can in turn shape responses in the immediate aftermath and over the long term. These pre-existing conditions and pressures may be basic environmental features of a region, well-established structural features of social organization or culture, or simply short-term processes occurring just before a hazard such as social revolt or migration. Chapter 4 makes an explicit distinction between pre-existing pressures connected to climate, environment, technology, and the economy and those connected to society such as institutions, poverty and inequality, and cultural values. Overall, we suggest that the diversity in pre-existing conditions and pressures seen across time and space played a significant role not only in the likelihood of hazards occurring throughout history, but also in the differing likelihood of hazards turning into disasters.

Outside the Indus borderlands, the expansion of agriculture and settled society occurring hand in hand with population growth led to a new medieval dispensation that had little continuity with the prehistoric and ancient past. These combined processes occurred relatively late in comparison with developments in other major world regions such as the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia-Persia and are here traced region by region. Once they did take off, they showed greater potential than almost anywhere else in the world. The chapter goes on to show how in the early medieval period the expansion of agriculture and settled society began to give rise to a fragmented landscape of monarchies of varying dimensions and importance in the plains of all great river systems of India (South and Southeast Asia). This more vertical and hierarchical political order emerging in the zones of nucleated agricultural settlement of early medieval India superseded the thinly spread, mostly ritual sovereignty of the ancient empires. Typically, it was based on a condominium of Hindu kings and the Brahman priesthood and thrived in the context of a newly arising medieval Hinduism and caste order characteristic of settled society.

Outside the Indus borderlands, the expansion of agriculture and settled society occurring hand in hand with population growth led to a new medieval dispensation that had little continuity with the prehistoric and ancient past. These combined processes occurred relatively late in comparison with developments in other major world regions such as the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia-Persia and are here traced region by region. Once they did take off, they showed greater potential than almost anywhere else in the world. The chapter goes on to show how in the early medieval period the expansion of agriculture and settled society began to give rise to a fragmented landscape of monarchies of varying dimensions and importance in the plains of all great river systems of India (South and Southeast Asia). This more vertical and hierarchical political order emerging in the zones of nucleated agricultural settlement of early medieval India superseded the thinly spread, mostly ritual sovereignty of the ancient empires. Typically, it was based on a condominium of Hindu kings and the Brahman priesthood and thrived in the context of a newly arising medieval Hinduism and caste order characteristic of settled society.

The potato’s political invisibility ended in the eighteenth century, when it attained unprecedented political prominence. The nourishing qualities that had once drawn criticism began to be viewed more positively. As a result, the potato became the object of intense scientific and political interest across Europe, as officials, local societies, agronomists, priests and many other organisations and individuals promoted potato consumption in word and deed. This extensive, pan-European potato investigation and propaganda resulted in the publication of hundreds of texts extolling the potato’s potential as a superior staple for working people, one whose greater consumption would help ensure the strength and success of the nation. Its popularity reflected the emergence of the new models of political economy and governance that stressed the importance of a healthy, well-nourished population to the power and wealth of the state. Integrating the slower history of the potato’s conquest of European dietaries, discussed in , with its frenetic promotion in the eighteenth century illuminates the central role that food came to play in modern models of statecraft.

The proportion of the world population in the birth-through-childhood group is large and while it will decrease proportionately in the future, it will continue to be a dominant group in the world’s population. The birth years for the Alpha Generation commenced in 2010. The values and beliefs of the emerging generation are being shaped and defined, with contemporary world and local events impacting on this generation in ways never before experienced. There are many agencies globally and in Australia that provide updates of indicators related to children’s health, development and wellbeing. What these data indicate is a wide range of variability in the health, development and wellbeing of young Australians aged 0–14 years – and a lack of comprehensive knowledge in some core areas where we might expect to have a clear understanding of our practices, especially with regard to the proportion of children attending early childhood education programs. The variability is geographic and between some population groups.

The proportion of the world population in the birth-through-childhood group is large and while it will decrease proportionately in the future, it will continue to be a dominant group in the world’s population. The birth years for the Alpha Generation commenced in 2010. The values and beliefs of the emerging generation are being shaped and defined, with contemporary world and local events impacting on this generation in ways never before experienced. There are many agencies globally and in Australia that provide updates of indicators related to children’s health, development and wellbeing. What these data indicate is a wide range of variability in the health, development and wellbeing of young Australians aged 0–14 years – and a lack of comprehensive knowledge in some core areas where we might expect to have a clear understanding of our practices, especially with regard to the proportion of children attending early childhood education programs. The variability is geographic and between some population groups.

Every country, every subnational government, and every electoral district has a designated population. Some are large and some are small. Yet in existing empirical work, population is usually treated as a background factor. In this preface, the present book’s focus on scale effects is outlined and motivated. By means of a brief comparison of the illustrative examples of the United States and Malta, it is argued that population size influences politics in a variety of ways. Since it is difficult to reach a determination about the role of scale for particular cases, this book examines scale effects at a general level, focusing on universal rather than particular causal effects. While a venerable tradition of political thought and scholarship suggests that scale is an obstacle to democracy and good governance, our findings suggest that scale has both positive and negative effects. The final section of the preface lays out the structure of this book, highlighting the themes discussed in each of the following chapters.

Between 1780 and 1830, a highly distinctive body of imaginative writing emerged in Ireland, formed by and in turn helping to mould the linguistic, political, historical, and geographical divisions characteristic of Irish life. The intense and turbulent creative effort involved bore witness to a key transition at the beginning of the nineteenth century: the emergence of modern Irish literature as a distinct cultural category. During these years, Irish literature came to consist of a recognisable body of work, which later generations could draw on, quote, anthologise, and debate. This chapter offers a new map of the making of Irish literature in the romantic period, as well as introducing the aims of the volume as a whole.

As of yet, there is no political sociology of demography. Although not entirely ignored, demography has not been a central concern or preoccupation for most political sociologists; other topics and themes have more forcefully commanded attention. With some important exceptions, its relationship to states, parties, and movements has rarely been explicitly foregrounded. The same can be said about the relationship between demography and power. But what would a political sociology of demography look like? What kinds of questions and issues could it address? How could it contribute to our understanding of politics and demography, and of the relationship between the two?