Chapter 1 surveys scholarly approaches to the development of the parish church as a spatial/social phenomenon in medieval England. It introduces the example of the “open-plan parish church,” a distinctive architectural type defined by the absence of any structural division between nave and chancel, as a powerful mechanism for analyzing the dynamics of architectural form, architectural function, and architectural facture in late medieval society.

The conclusion argues, on the basis of the evidence presented throughout the book, that the open-plan parish church represents a special achievement in several respects: spatially (qua the English parish church), socially (qua the English parish church), and architecturally (as a manifestation of collaborative Gothic). It closes with a survey of the legacy of the type in the anglophone world.

There is perhaps no greater anathema to the vocational attitude of George MacDonald than the concept of solitary genius. Implicit in the rural community of his youth, the explicit teaching and practice of such relational theology by key mentors further shaped MacDonald’s own practice. His web of friendships grew notably broad, a compendium of illustrious names from multiple countries, in addition to many obscure figures from a mix of classes and cultures. His keenness to share such friends – be they voices on a page or present in the flesh – is a signature of his craft and scholarship that warrants closer attention. This chapter considers a range of these relationships, from his mentors A. J. Scott and F. D. Maurice to Victorian critics John Ruskin, Matthew Arnold, and many more. A fundamental aspect of MacDonald’s significance to the Victorian era is that this commitment to relationships impacted not only his own work but the lives and works of many notable Victorians.

When George MacDonald discusses how the imagination works by first moving our feelings, which then promote thought, he acknowledges that a genuine work of art will strike one person differently from the way it strikes another person. We call this interpretation, and the interpretation of art is expansive, open, full of possibilities. As MacDonald says, a work of art may mean many things. What matters is the creative relationship between the reader and the book.

This chapter addresses how psychology can better understand and support human development in contexts of adversity, defined as those characterized by poverty, violence, inequality, and social exclusion. We argue that mainstream psychology’s focus on WEIRD populations, lab-bound methods, and narrow frameworks has led to a tacitly accepted “deficit approach” to poverty that overlooks the cognitive and relational skills of people living in these contexts. Through case studies and research partnerships with youth, former guerrilla members, and favela communities, we show that poverty demands – rather than prevents – sophisticated cognition. We propose a tripartite model of community-engaged research that values and builds on the knowledge, capabilities, and resilience marginalized communities possess. We call for recognition of community knowledge through participatory research, including critical reflection on psychology’s knowledge production, suggesting this is essential to expand understanding of contexts and join the coalition of knowledges needed for sustainable development for all.

“Behind the Deadline, April 1864–April 1865” examines the “second” Camp Ford – the prison camp after it swelled in size to become the largest Confederate camp west of the Mississippi River. The chapter provides a rich and textured cultural, environmental, and social history of the Union prisoners and how their increased numbers and the subsequent increase in the camp’s physical size from five to ten acres shaped their experience within and outside the new stockade. This chapter explores in detail prison life and death during Camp Ford’s most cramped and dangerous time.

“Paths to Captivity, 1863” provides background and context for the construction of Camp Ford and for those Union soldiers first imprisoned there. It describes how and where Confederates captured the first wave of Union prisoners in 1863, and it traces their journeys from Arkansas, Louisiana, or the Gulf Coast to the new prison outside of Tyler. Chapter 2 offers a framework for those early prisoners, guards, and civilians who intersected at Camp Ford.

Most of the shooting stopped in 1865, but the war did not fully end. Indeed, as a generation of scholars have shown, the Civil War continued in many ways throughout the rest of the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries. This ongoing debate about how we might remember the conflict raged into the twenty-first century with destructive protests across the South, including debates in Tyler, Texas, very near where Camp Ford is memorialized today. “Camp Ford’s New Civil War, 1865–2025” situates Camp Ford’s ongoing war in this important timeline and tells the story of how the space and its meaning has been used and misused and interpreted and misinterpreted from the war’s official end in 1865 to the present.

Camp Ford’s Civil War’s introduction is driven by narrative couched in concise arguments and general historiographical context so that readers know precisely what to expect and how what they will read fits into the ongoing scholarly conversations regarding war, nature, and captivity in Texas, the Trans-Mississippi, and the South during the Civil War.

This chapter explores the concept of rationality, examining the relationship between human beings and rationality through Brandom’s distinction between ‘sapients’ and ‘sentients’. Brandom treats rationality as a specifically human capacity. However, it is argued that if a non-human agent acquires sufficient discursive competence, it can also be regarded as a rational actor.Next, various senses of rationality are charted. On the one hand, rationality appears as inferential competence universally possessed by all genuinely discursive agents. On the other hand, it manifests as a variable form of social practice, shaped by material rather than formal features.The chapter concludes by proposing a conception of rationality as discursive rationality, composed of three core features: (1) a tight, dense, and explicit inferential structure; (2) a systematic coping mechanism with the non-linguistic world; and (3) openness to alternative inferential structures. This leads to a maxim for communal and discursive rationality: the more a community exhibits these three features, the more rational it is.

“Backdrops, 1860–1862” establishes the backdrop for Camp Ford’s home region. It focuses on slavery, agriculture, and local perspectives of the Civil War. The foundation of any good community history rests with context. While the rest of the book focuses primarily on the prisoners at Camp Ford – before, during, and after their incarceration – Chapter 1 provides chronological and spatial perspective. This chapter considers the space and people within the county where Camp Ford would emerge, exploring Smith County, Texas, from 1860 until the end of 1862. It provides an environmental, agricultural, social, cultural, and political framework for the land and people.

While Camp Ford at its most crowded had more favorable conditions than most wartime prison camps, Union prisoners of war nevertheless wanted out. Many attempted to escape, and most failed. “Escaping Camp Ford, 1863–1865” explores these remarkable escape attempts, at once telling the stories of the escapees, their pursuers, and the natural and cultural environments through which they sought freedom. In short, this chapter will convey rollicking and often deadly stories balanced by a deeper analysis of the environment and people both in the region immediately around Camp Ford and throughout much of East Texas, southern Indian Territory, and western Louisiana. The act of escape – successful or not – had a major impact on those within the prison and beyond.

“Imprisoned, July 1863–April 1864” is devoted primarily to the “first” Camp Ford from 1863 to 1864 – the prison camp before it was contained by a wooden stockade built by local enslaved people. This chapter examines the daily existence of the early federal prisoners and how they interacted with camp guards, local civilians, and enslaved people. It includes detailed discussions for how the natural environment shaped the prisoner experience and how prisoners shaped their environment.

As co-management often involves resource-using community participation, understanding of what is meant and understood by the concept of community is critical. The chapter therefore begins by recognising the contested nature of the concept of ‘community’, noting critique of assumptions regarding shared interests and priorities, and reflects on different forms of community, how communities may emerge over time and recognition of ‘delocalisation’ of communities in relation to natural resource governance. Different bases of social cohesion are then considered and forms of the related concept of social capital reviewed. Insights from research into how cohesion and social capital influence co-management emphasise the centrality of relationships. Given that co-management may involve multiple and diverse communities, representation of actors is generally necessary. The section on representation considers what representation implies and what bases of representation have been found within the experience of co-management.

This chapter is a comparative long-term community study of Muslim Roma who migrated from North Macedonia to New York City starting in the 1960s and who now number several thousand people. Drawing on Paul Gilroy’s Black Atlantic, it illustrates the multiple identities of varied community members via family, work, ritual and cultural productions. It especially examines music as a window into community expression; tellingly, song lyrics often deal with migration. Music is highly valued in all social occasions and as part of the ritual and economic web. Music is shared in a wide transatlantic social media network that forms the soundscape of Macedonian Romani family and community life. In fact, some musicians are the most mobile members of their communities. Ethnographic fieldwork from which this chapter has developed took place among Macedonian Roma in North Macedonia, the United States, Western Europe, Canada and Australia since 1988.

This introduction outlines the focus and scope of the study, explaining its motivation, remit, and overall aim. It offers brief thoughts on relevant interpretive issues, explains the structure of the book, and provides brief summaries of each of the subsequent chapters.