This chapter introduces five families whose histories each exemplify parts of the British non-elite experience of India. The Keen and Wonnacott families experienced opposing forms of social mobility in India where their social status, bolstered by the presence of native labor and constrained by the strictures of military hierarchy, changed dramatically. John Brand waited with his regiment for a conflict to fight in, experiencing India, like many other soldiers, as a place of stasis and sickness. Ned Crawford, who came to India as his search for work along the east coast of Britain failed and expanded to the empire, sought to maintain connections to both his brother and British political culture. And George and Lucy Cole, whose marriage suffered when George sought employment in India, reveal the effects Indian service could have on family units across imperial distance. These themes of upward and downward mobility, attempts to create community, both local and intraimperial, and the fallout of Indian and imperial separation on intimate relationships recur throughout the book.

This chapter explores the form and practice of correspondence between Britain and India, uncovering the social and affective worlds of British non-elite families. Many of these correspondents had low levels of literacy and did not write for private audiences, but relied on others to read and transcribe their correspondence. Intimate details of private lives became public knowledge. Letters transported information about India back to Britain and spread it throughout communities of origin, far beyond the reach of a single letter. Correspondents based in India maintained ties to their communities at home as they consumed everything from family gossip to political news. Correspondence was central to maintaining the economic health of a family. But the same mechanisms that sustained families and communities could disrupt them as well. Scorned spouses shared their grievances with neighbors. Mothers relied on daughters to convey their intimate feelings to their husbands. The form of correspondence and the practicalities of writing across long distances determined how relationships were sustained or disrupted, how information about the empire was disseminated, and how the empire shaped family life.

This chapter characterizes the average Age of Information (AoI) for the case of having multiple sources sharing a service facility with a single server. In particular, a simplified explanation of the SHS for AoI approach is provided to calculate the average age of updates of any source at the monitor. This approach is applied to various queueing systems including FCFS, M/M/1*, and M/M/1/2*, and the latter two with and without source priorities.

Chapter 2 explores reactions to the Plague of Provence in Italy with a focus on the port city of Genoa, considered by some to be “l’état le plus exposé,” or “the most exposed” to the threat of plague by its proximity to Marseilles. The chapter begins with a brief introduction to Genoa’s rich history of quarantine and public health. It then examines how a campaign of misinformation perpetuated by officials in Marseilles affected the reception of news about the plague outside of France. Claims that the disease was merely a malignant fever, or that the outbreak had ended (when it had not) caused confusion in the first months of the outbreak. Nevertheless, the inevitable truth that plague was in France began to arrive in cities across Europe via envoys, ambassadors, and especially via consuls, who reported back to their respective states from Provence. From there, word traveled rapidly as these accounts were copied in letters and printed in newspapers across Europe and the colonies, creating what I term an “invisible commonwealth” based in contemporary communication networks. The chapter then examines responses to the Provençal plague in Genoa and how they influenced, or were influenced by, Italian trade and diplomacy.

From 1720 to 1722, the French region of Provence and surrounding areas experienced one of the last major epidemics of plague to strike Western Europe. The Plague of Provence (or Great Plague of Marseilles) was a major disaster that left in its wake as many as 126,000 deaths, as well as new understandings about the nature of contagion and how best to manage its threat. Although the infection never left southeastern France, all of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and parts of Asia mobilized against its threat, and experienced its social, commercial, and diplomatic repercussions. Accordingly, this transnational study explores responses to this biological threat in some of the foremost port cities of the eighteenth-century world, including Marseilles, Genoa, London, Cádiz—the principal port for the Carrera de Indias or Route to the Indies – as well as some of the principal colonial towns with which these cities were most closely associated. In this way, this book reveals the ways in which a crisis in one part of the globe can yet transcend geographic and temporal boundaries to influence society, politics, and public health policy in regions far removed from the epicenter of disaster.

From 1720 to 1722, the French region of Provence and surrounding areas experienced one of the last major epidemics of plague to strike Western Europe. The Plague of Provence (or Great Plague of Marseilles) was a major disaster that left in its wake as many as 126,000 deaths, as well as new understandings about the nature of contagion and how best to manage its threat. Although the infection never left southeastern France, all of Europe, the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and parts of Asia mobilized against its threat, and experienced its social, commercial, and diplomatic repercussions. Accordingly, this transnational study explores responses to this biological threat in some of the foremost port cities of the eighteenth-century world, including Marseilles, Genoa, London, Cádiz—the principal port for the Carrera de Indias or Route to the Indies – as well as some of the principal colonial towns with which these cities were most closely associated. In this way, this book reveals the ways in which a crisis in one part of the globe can yet transcend geographic and temporal boundaries to influence society, politics, and public health policy in regions far removed from the epicenter of disaster.

This is a concluding chapter, and considers the general themes raised by the previously mentioned materials. These include the limits of globalization, the importance of small countries, and the often thin line between reality and fantasy in domestic and international image-making. While the Nordics have many faults, they have succeeded in creating an alternate image of democracy that emphasizes a balance between the individual, society, and the physical environment. For these reasons – and not withstanding criticisms – the Nordic Model remains important in the twenty-first century.

This chapter interrogates the multiple and nuanced ways in which Harriet Jacobs engaged with developing communications technologies and policies ostensibly designed to connect different sections of the nation to one another. Reading Jacobs’s experiences in the 1830s in relation to an ongoing communications revolution in the United States, this chapter shows how Jacobs ingeniously manipulates formal and informal networks in order to secure freedom for herself and her family.