Chapter 1 establishes the context and extent of Dutch culture in New York to demonstrate that Dutch slavery in New York was distinct and extensive. This chapter provides a demographic argument for the importance of Dutch slaves in the history of New York slavery. This chapter combines an argument drawn from census data with anthropological observations about the nature of violence and mobility in Dutch New York slavery.

This chapter begins to explore the impact of slave majorities and limited white migration and settlement to the tropics. This chapter starts with Barbados in the middle of the seventeenth century, showing that the island had held a substantial white majority population and that it was the most densely settled place in England’s overseas empire before a mix of disease and emigration combined with dwindling immigration led to a sharp decline in the white population. The chapter details the increasing black to white ratios at tropical sites across the colonies after the dispersal of white settlers from Barbados. The English tried to mitigate their fears of these emerging racial imbalances by turning to new modes of political arithmetic to socially engineer populations and recruit more European migrants. English colonial architects started to calculate exactly how many white settlers would be necessary to ensure the survival of the English in the tropics and counter the new crisis in political economy. These constructed metrics helped to entrench ideas about racial distinctions.

It has been widely recognized that how languages behave, particularly under conditions of contact with other languages, depends on their context. Using the Ethnolinguistic Vitality framework, this chapter describes the demographics, linguistic attitudes and institutional supports for heritage languages, defining the concepts and illustrating them with examples from Toronto, the context in which the HLVC project is conducted. Demographic information includes population sizes, language shift rates, and history of settlement in Toronto. Status information includes both reflections on the status of heritage languages, as a whole, in Canada and labels attributed to the specific varieties. The institutional support section reports on the number of language classes available for each language. The chapter also includes discussion of language policy, particularly for education, and the demographics of the university where the research is centered, enabling other researchers to best consider what aspects of the project might need adjusting for adaptation in other contexts.

It is commonly assumed that that we are all more or less dependent on the news for our political information and opinion, which, if true, would explain how and why the media wield a powerful influence over society. This chapter presents evidence that this is not true and that we garner first-hand knowledge of politics and public policies from everyday experience of life and our own family finances and well- being. Talking with family, friends, neighbours and colleagues also provides information and helps shape out political attitudes and opinions.

In this introductory chapter, we examine the worldwide distribution of literacy, its development with schooling, and the sources of individual variation in literacy outcomes. Various perspectives on global variation are discussed while also aiming for a common framework to describe literacy development that recognizes demographic boundaries in the world, on the one hand, and its global variation as a function of bio-ecological markers on the other hand. In this introduction, we draw attention to the wealth of recent research on variations in literacy development that arise across regions and that reflect the multiple interrelated influences of individual, home, school, and societal factors. Furthermore, observations on the neurobiological and ecological markers related to global literacy are discussed. These include the role of writing systems, genetics, brain foundations, self-regulation, and sociocultural, contextual, teacher, and parental factors in global literacy development. An explanatory framework is also provided showing that literacy development involves gaining reading fluency and spelling to facilitate reading comprehension and writing, that it builds on language, and that child characteristics and home- and school-support factors combine to influence individual variation, within an indirectly influential sociopolitical context.

In this final chapter, a wide-angle perspective is provided on the major issues that arise when one thinks globally about literacy. Despite many important differences across the globe, literacy development suggests some general patterns that reflect nearly universal phases and shared operating principles. Although the “development” of literacy begins early through natural processes of language development and conceptual development, it is school experiences, explicitly designed to teach reading, that we expect to ensure the achievement of literacy. Each classroom within a school is its own literacy ecosystem, with one or more teachers, students, literacy curriculum materials, assesments, and regulated interactions. The classroom itself is embedded within other systems – the school, the community, the larger school administrative units, and local, regional, and national government control agents. A Global Literacy Framework is presented, showing that literacy development is embedded in language development and can be predicted by (a) system factors, referring to variations in the linguistic and writing systems, (b) child factors, associated with the neurobiological foundation of children’s learning capacity, and (c) support factors, associated with processes in the home and at school. All these influences exist within a sociopolitical context that exerts influence broadly across the system.

This chapter deals with the topic of inequality in the healthcare sector. The chapter begins by looking at some summary data and the inequality in various measures of health that are obvious from simple differences. Then the chapter discusses some basic social philosophy on the topic of how to judge fairness in an abstract society. More detailed data on health outcomes is then explored, highlighted inequality along different demographic lines. Then there is a discussion of theories that fit the facts presented: why do these inequalities exist, and what do we learn by unpacking them: both social implications as well as clinical. Finally, inequalities in the labor market for healthcare workers are discussed.

This chapter analyses the wars of independence in Spanish America from the perspective of the Caribbean coast of South America, arguing that this stretch of coast (the pardo coast) constituted a cohesive and coherent geographical space with dynamics that resulted from its demographic structure and geographical location. Because people of African descent constituted the majority of the population of Caribbean South America, a focus on the pardo coast reveals the central role they played during the conflicts that led to the creation of Colombia and Venezuela. Because the pardo coast was in such close proximity to the Caribbean islands, the independence process in the area was greatly determined by what its leaders could achieve in Jamaica and Haiti. Because it was the gateway to South America, the pardo coast was at the vanguard of some of the most modern political experiments of the era and was the center of some of the most violent confrontations of the wars. In short, a focus on the pardo coast offers a useful recalibration of scale that makes visible processes that often get lost in analyses that use national frameworks as units of analysis or that are perceived as uniquely local.

With an understanding of the factors that may drive or protect against suicide and how they interact with physiological systems, we now turn to a discussion of what is known about suicide generally in the United States, specifically among various demographic groups. Suicide claimed 45,979 American lives in 2020, and US suicide rates have, until recently, increased while any other countries’ rates decreased. This chapter highlights what is known about the demographics of suicide in terms of age, race and ethnicity, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity, as well as geography and location. We also highlight the limitations of this knowledge given that many diverse subgroups are aggregated into higher-order categories, small sample sizes limit knowledge of certain groups, and that many intersecting identities have been overlooked. While a single chapter is unable to cover all aspects of intersecting identities, attempts are made to highlight how intersections and multiple marginalization can compound suicide risk.

This chapter examines the politics of American immigrant fiction in the twentieth century, a time period that saw three large waves of immigration. The first took place between 1880 and 1924 and consisted primarily of European immigrants and Asian immigrants. The second wave ranged from 1924 to 1965 and was much smaller than the first, largely due to shifting political views toward immigrants which resulted in legislation that significantly restricted the flow of newcomers. The third wave was triggered in 1965 by another change in both national attitude and policy and it lasted into the early decades of the twentieth century. During this time, the immigrant novel reflected political realities through its portrayal of how migration to the United States brought success for some and marginalization for others. The genre confronted the myth that all newcomers enjoy equal potential to achieve the “American Dream” by exposing how racialization, the process of assigning individuals to categories based on characteristics such as skin color or facial features, significantly determined inclusion or exclusion.

The twenty-four accessible and thought-provoking essays in this volume present innovative new scholarship on Japan’s modern history, including its imperial past and transregional entanglements. Drawing on the latest Japanese and English-language scholarship, it highlights Japan’s distinctiveness as an extraordinarily fast-changing place. Indeed, Japan provides a ringside seat to all the big trends of modern history. Japan was the first non-Western society to become a modern nation and empire, to industrialize, to wage modern war on a vast scale, and to deliver a high standard of living to virtually all its citizens. Because the Japanese so determinedly acted to reshape global hierarchies, their modern history was incredibly destabilizing for the world. This intense dynamism has powered a variety of debates and conflicts, both at home and with people and places beyond Japan’s shores. Put simply, Japan has packed a lot of history into less than two centuries.

The chapter explores the central challenge of balancing the reduction of recidivism with the need to address the health, educational, identity, family and social care needs of young offenders. It works to summarise the wealth of practical guidance generated in the past decade; considerations of the environment used for assessment and treatment, the attributes and skills of the practitioners working with young offenders and the standardised tools available to ensure that the needs of young offenders are fully understood. The chapter details the wide range of potential unmet needs that young offenders may have; the higher than typical mental health problems, substance use and physical health needs. The context of the pandemic and the importance of the Black Lives Matter movement run through this work and are interwoven with other key identity issues including gender and sexuality. Finally, the chapter summarises treatment approaches, and models of care across the transition interfaces of secure and community settings and child and adult services, while considering the challenge of supporting young offenders in the context of digital spaces and social media.

Harrison discusses her team’s research on female serial killers (FSKs) who committed their crimes in the US, beginning with FSK background. Topics include demographics, physical appearance, education, socioeconomic status, developmental history, family events, and age of first murder. The occupations of FSKs are discussed. Alarmingly, FSKs are often nurses, nurse’s aides, or other caregivers. The author compares her findings with those from other notable studies, such as from criminologist Eric Hickey. The rarity of empirical research on FSKs is underscored. The author describes her sample of FSKs derived using the mass media method of forensic research, examining information from newspapers, television networks, courts, government records, and historical societies. Harrison underscores the importance of incorporating and citing information from valid source material. Long-term effects of childhood maltreatment and a traumagenic background are underscored. To illustrate chapter concepts, the author presents the cases of FSKs Dorothea Puente and Jane Toppan and revisits the case of FSK Aileen Wuornos.

We provide selective account of how and why the share of Asia in the world economy has more than quadrupled in the past half-century. In 1970, Asia (excluding Japan) accounted for around 9 per cent of the world economy. At the turn of the twenty-first century, this had climbed to 18 per cent and today exceeds 40 per cent. Asian growth has occurred rapidly regardless of political system, institutional arrangements or policy cocktails. We illustrate how far the Asian economies have come and how far they have left to go to attain the living standards of Europe or North America. For example, in India and China income per capita went from just under 5 per cent of the US level each to around 11 per cent and 28 per cent, respectively from 1970 to 2020. The main drivers of growth have been the accumulation of capital and labour along with improvements in the quality of the labour force. We also concentrate on the features that are both a cause and a consequence of the connections world. These include export-led growth, the role of the state, political systems and economic institutions, but also inequality. In so doing, we set the scene for the chapters that follow.