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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was in Western Europe until April 1878, then returned to Russia. From November 15 to the end of the year, he was in Western Europe again, spending almost a month in Florence with Nadezhda von Meck; he then went to Paris and Clarens. On January 1, 1878, he was in San Remo, his immediate source of anguish being a promise to serve on the Russian delegation to the Paris Universal Exhibition later that year. Reminded by an appointment letter just before Christmas, he would have to leave immediately, abandon the Fourth Symphony, and cancel the imminent visit of Modest Tchaikovsky and Kolya Konradi. Instead he withdrew, declaring himself to the Russian consul in Paris to be too ill to leave San Remo despite his “ardent desire.” Nikolay Grigorievich Rubinstein's reaction to this would be unsettling, as Tchaikovsky was to return to the conservatory in the autumn and still depended on him.

This chapter begins by setting out the book's two main themes. The first theme is the historical process by which a particular and distinctive region of Yorubaland – Remo – has been continuously formed and re-formed as a political community over the past two centuries. The narrative focuses on the importance of popular consent and political participation in this process, and privileges the often-tumultuous events of the last seventy years. The second theme is the crucial role played in Remo politics of its most notable citizen, Obafemi Awolowo (1909–87), who was also a leading figure of pan-Yoruba politics over many decades and one of Nigeria's most important statesmen. Awolowo was equally a product and a producer of Remo politics. The discussion then covers popular participation in the making of Remo; popular participation in local-level politics; Remo politics before Awolowo; Awolowo as a product and a producer of Remo politics; local support as the basis of political success; Awolowo in national politics; and the myth and legacy of Awolowo. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.

This chapter focuses on the political anatomy of the Remo towns during the nineteenth century, thus privileging the social anatomy of institutions over the explanation of historical processes. The primary concern is to introduce the reader to the historically embedded functioning of Remo's main political, ritual and social institutions in different contexts and over time, in order to explain both the enduring nature of important political dynamics, and the changing historical debates and struggles surrounding and appropriating them.

This chapter explores Remo's responses to the wider conflicts affecting the region during the nineteenth century, which include the break-up of the Remo federation and the foundation of the current Remo capital Sagamu. The overall effect of this development was a hierarchisation that reduced spaces for local participation, but which also increased Remo's political autonomy vis-à-vis its former overlord Ijebu-Ode. When the British recognised Sagamu, its leading town Ofin and its ruler, the Akàrígbò, as Remo's central institutions in 1894, they further confirmed these trends.

This chapter focuses on the growing pull of nationalist politics in the 1940s and 1950s, which saw a great expansion of political participation in Remo. Aware of Ofin's historical struggle vis-à-vis other Remo towns, Awolowo used his own political party to revalidate rather than overcome local political rivalries.

While discontent based on historical rivalries became an important resource for political mobilisation, this chapter demonstrates that the association of party politics with local rivalries was a productive and innovative dynamic, which ultimately enabled Awolowo to overcome Remo's factionalism. Although this process was centred on Awolowo's agency and leadership, its success depended on popular consent and the community's view of itself.

This chapter examines the continuing presence of Awolowo in Remo politics after his death in 1987. During the period of military rule that followed his demise, popular participation in local politics was centred on Awolowo's political legacy. However, after the return to civilian rule in 1999, political cohesion in Remo declined. No longer held together by opposition to the military, local unity both at the grassroots and within the traditional hierarchy has been under pressure, and Awolowo's widow Hannah has enabled politicians of the party in power to appropriate her late husband's name. Thus, even though Awolowo's anti-government views have lost importance for local politics, his pan-Yoruba legacy continues to be of symbolic and mythical importance.

This chapter takes up larger questions of retrospective watching through the post-World War Two moment at which understandings of Weimar dance were consolidated. Beginning from the copyright suit that Kurt Jooss filed against the musical revue film Sensation in San Remo after the return of his 1932 Green Table to West Germany in 1951, the chapter shows how one of the pieces most directly associated in retrospect with connecting inter-war and post-war German dance figured actively in reconstituting a postwar dance community. Returning from 19 years of exile, Jooss’s stylistic fusion was cited as an unfinished form of late Ausdruckstanz and used to bridge interwar and postwar dance, in the process justifying continuities with fascist aesthetics through, rather than despite, the legacy his work carried. This chapter thus historicizes how Weimar-era dance came to be understood in relation to successive generations of German dance, including dance theatre.

The current chapter focuses on the ‘recent’ non-binding instruments, starting with the 1994 San Remo Manual on Naval Warfare. This chapter will analyse: the intention behind their adoption; their scope and breadth; the originating institution or organisation and the participants involved; and a brief discussion how such instruments have been received. The analysis will serve to establish the groundwork for the second part of this book, which will explore the bigger theoretical questions of how non-binding instruments generally (and these particular non-binding instruments specifically) have been received; whether they have actually made an impact on their extant topic areas; and whether the processes by which they have been drafted and adopted in practice (if they have been adopted in practice) raises any concerns or challenges for the international law-making process, and the centrality of the State to that process.

This chapter covers Arab self-determination: as a wide Arab national self-determination movement that engages a worldview with the new international order imposed by WW1. It covers Arab Nationalism: The Great Arab Revolt of 1916; The British Alliance with the Arab Nationalist Movement; The Kingdom of Hijaz declaration of Arab independence; French and German outlook on Arab statehood; The era of the League of Nations; The Mandate System and Its Legal Challenges; Arab Representation in the Paris Peace Conference; San Remo conference and finally; the collapse of the Hijazi–British alliance.

This chapter examines the ramifications of asymmetric warfare for traditional international humanitarian law by focusing on the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” incident. On May 31, 2010, Israel launched a military operation against six civilian ships of the “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” in international waters off the Mediterranean Sea, resulting in the death of nine passengers aboard MV Mavi Marmara—the only vessel that did not practice passive resistance. The chapter analyzes the politicization of the incident and highlights how the legal and policy shortcomings of postmodern warfare are especially attenuated when conflicts take place in a maritime environment. It also discusses the limits of the law of naval warfare, counterinsurgency and non-international armed conflicts, and the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflict at Sea.