Although Europe deserves condemnation for the ethnocentric and racist notions and attitudes that flourished within it both before and during the era of imperialism, these were preceded, accompanied, and countered by a singular interest in and openness to other peoples and cultures. The marks of this openness were an exceptional interest in travel and writings about it, in learning non-European languages and translating and circulating texts written in them, in correcting their own forbears’ calumnies and defamations of others by exposing myths and legends for what they were, and by acknowledging the historical and cultural achievements of other peoples. The notion that Asian governments were despotic spread chiefly because those who adopted it feared the spread of autocracy in their own countries, and it drew forth harsh criticism. Images of other countries or regions, especially China and the Near East, became mirrors in which Europeans contemplated the limitations and narrow prejudices of their own way of life.

About 300 kilometres from Cape Town on the south-west coast of South Africa is a cave that overlooks the Indian Ocean. Archaeologists have been digging at Blombos Cave since 1991. What they have found has changed our view of human evolution.

Anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa. Homo sapiens is a species of the hominid family, the great apes. Genetic evidence suggests that apes diverged from other mammals around 85 million years ago; the earliest fossils we have of apes are from around 55 million years ago.

There are two things that make humans unique from other apes: bipedalism and language. Bipedalism, our ability to walk on two legs, also resulted in other skeletal changes, to the pelvis, the vertebral column, feet and ankles, and the skull, including an increase in the size and structure of the brain.

This chapter outlines the complex historical processes that have shaped the present-day distribution of communities and ethnic groups across mainland Southeast Asia. The chapter first introduces some general information about the region, the languages, and some conceptual preliminaries for the book. A historical account then traces developments since prehistory through the emergence of early states in the first millennium of the Common Era, followed by the rise of new states associated with migrations from the north, into the modern colonial and postcolonial era. The chapter finishes with a discussion of the area’s politically dominant languages and a survey of the state of the art in linguistic research.

This chapter gives an introduction to the debate between resourcists and capabilitarians on the best metric for interpersonal comparisons of ‘advantage’. It starts by identifying a number of factors that complicate the debate and should be kept in mind while reading this body of literature. The remainder of the chapter zooms in on the philosophical literature about justice, addressing two main topics. The first is the existence of immense human diversity, which resourcists like Rawls and Pogge insufficiently acknowledge and address according to capabilitarians. The second topic is neutrality towards the good life, a value which capabilitarians like Nussbaum fail to respect according to resourcists. In the course of the chapter, several theoretical distinctions are identified that underlie the debate: chance versus choice, natural versus social causes, ideal versus non-ideal theories of justice and distributive justice versus justice as recognition. The difference between resourcists and capabilitarians, so it is concluded, is as much a difference in how they frame the debate about justice as a difference in the evaluative space that they defend.