The chapter details early medieval riverine infrastructure, looking at ways that medieval leaders and communities understood the challenges and opportunities posed by the many rivers that supported and surrounded them. Working across the broadest range of sources, this chapter is the most focused on material culture and human infrastructure. It surveys practical responses, economic solutions, concerns about riverine sustainability, and the construction and maintenance of infrastructure (canals, mills, fish weirs, bridges, etc.), presenting the ways that medieval people responded to rivers on a daily basis. It also includes discussion of the regulation of riverine resources and the conflicts that could arise over rivers, ultimately arguing that rivers were actively contested, constructed, and integrated into the full economy, culture, and experience of medieval Europe.

The realization that radio astronomers could detect radio galaxies that were well beyond the limits of even the most powerful optical telescopes suggested that radio observations might be able to distinguish between the two competing cosmological models. The commonly accepted big-bang model required that, since the Universe continued to evolve with time, so the distant (younger) Universe should appear different than the nearby modern Universe. By contrast, the steady-state theory required that the Universe is, and always was, everywhere the same, so distant galaxies should look the same as more nearby galaxies. An intense controversy developed between radio astronomers in Sydney, Australia and Cambridge, UK over the distribution of radio sources and their implication for theories of cosmology. The Australian radio astronomers, who had better data than the Cambridge research workers, found no evidence of cosmic evolution. The Cambridge group, led by Martin Ryle, misunderstood the effects of their instrumental errors and used an incorrect analysis – but got the right answer, arguing that the Universe is evolving with time, contrary to the expectations of the steady state-theory.

“Justice” is a big word. One response to such words is to defer to the common-sense wisdom that lies in running together a range of themes and do as good a job as possible of tracing the common concern. Thereby, we would make as much sense as possible of a big word. This approach is what we try to do here for justice. But this is an uphill struggle. The centrality of distributive or social justice to political philosophy is a historical anomaly. It is a challenge to integrate ideas about the global properly with considerations of social justice. To talk about the coloniality of the concept of social justice means to draw attention to the built-in disregard for the concerns of many people on this planet. So, as we make a case for the importance of social justice, we must also integrate ideas of the global in appropriate ways.

A study of production remains in the ancient Maghrib allows a reflection on the technology used by African craftsmen. Archaeological remains from the Roman period prove to be valuable indicators that can inform us about tools and manufacturing methods. In particular, the study of ancient grain mills and fulling workshops develops our understanding of the technical processes and helps clarify the restitution of the chaînes opératoires for different types of activities (transformation of foodstuffs, manufacturing and treatment of textiles, construction and decoration). If all steps are not identifiable based on the archaeological record, they can still be reconstituted with the contribution of ancient written evidence, iconographic representations or ethnography. This analysis leads on the one hand to reflections on the adoption of Roman techniques and types of production in this region, and on the other hand to questioning the permanence of local savoir faire.