Africa may be home to the youngest population on earth, but its leaders are among the oldest; many are in their 80s. Most Africans, and especially young Africans, think their governments are doing a bad job at addressing the needs of youth, but young people struggle to gain access to power because ruling elites remain entrenched for decades. Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari seems woefully out of touch with his young electorate: in 2018 he accused young Nigerians of being lazy and uneducated. Young people are responding. In the Nigerian capital, Abuja, a thriving civic society led by young people encompasses everything from promoting good governance and increased transparency to increasing young voter registration and mentoring the leaders of tomorrow. But cultural norms and systemic barriers make it difficult for young people to be elected and monetisation of elections is a further issue: the cost of nomination forms for office is high and vote buying is endemic. The upcoming 2023 elections are likely to be a key moment for young people in Nigeria, when it will become visible if the impetus of recent social movements can be translated into an electoral force.

Africa may be home to the youngest population on earth, but its leaders are among the oldest; many are in their 80s. Most Africans, and especially young Africans, think their governments are doing a bad job at addressing the needs of youth, but young people struggle to gain access to power because ruling elites remain entrenched for decades. Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari seems woefully out of touch with his young electorate: in 2018 he accused young Nigerians of being lazy and uneducated. Young people are responding. In the Nigerian capital, Abuja, a thriving civic society led by young people encompasses everything from promoting good governance and increased transparency to increasing young voter registration and mentoring the leaders of tomorrow. But cultural norms and systemic barriers make it difficult for young people to be elected and monetisation of elections is a further issue: the cost of nomination forms for office is high and vote buying is endemic. The upcoming 2023 elections are likely to be a key moment for young people in Nigeria, when it will become visible if the impetus of recent social movements can be translated into an electoral force.

Chapter 17 sets out the historical factors behind the differing conceptions in India and Greece of the interrelation of universe with inner self and the absence from Greece of karma.

Chapter 5 begins with similarities and differences beween Vedic and Greek sacrifice, notably the centrality to Greek sacrifice of the communal meal that was absent from Vedic sacrifice, in which the cycle of nature, the payment of metaphysical debt and the rite of passage to heaven and back each forms a cosmic cycle driven by necessity. The individualisation of the Vedic sacrifice, along with its interiorisation and automatisation, cannot be explained by ignoring the factor of monetisation. Individualisation in India and Greece has different cultural consequences.

Chapter 16 emphasises the complex diversity of the factors shaping the Greek and Indian intellectual revolutions, describes the metaphysical consequences of a variety of perspectives on money and accounts for the differences between brahman and the Parmenidean One.

Chapter 2 describes the set of metaphysical ideas that, roughly speaking, occurred at about the same time in India and Greece and nowhere else . For the sake of clarity I expose, right from the start, the weaknesses of several kinds of explanation, in particular the widely popular assumption of 'influence', while also setting out the evidence for the socio-economic transformations that I regard as the most important but relatively neglected factor.

Chapter 10 begins with a critique of the best existing attempt (by Obeyesekere) to explain the origins of what I call ethicised indiscriminate reincarnation (EIR) in India and in Greece. But in my view any successful explanation cannot exclude monetisation, which also contributes to the importance of cyclicality in reincarnation, and to the advent of the widespread and persistent idea of individually accumulated karma. This requires reflection on the different roles of kinship in Greece and India.

The worlds of graffiti and street art are changing. Over the past fifteen years, institutions, corporations and the general public have increasingly taken an interest in these creative practices as legitimate forms of artistic and cultural expression. With this attention has come an influx of money, as collectors have bought up studio work by artists who also work in the street. Likewise, galleries, corporate brands, municipalities and others have sought to invest in – and capitalise on – the “urban cool” of graffiti and street art. This has been positive for some artists, who are now able to make a living from their work. However, the heightened interest has also brought to the fore questions about intellectual property in cases where expressions in different ways have been appropriated and commoditised without the author’s permission. A recent high-profile case involved the American graffiti writer Revok and the Swedish multinational fast fashion company H&M.