1. Here’s David Edgerton’s review of retired diplomat Arthur Snell’s book, How Britain Broke the World: War, Greed and Blunders from Kosovo to Afghanistan, 1997-2021 for The New Statesman https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/books/book-of-the-day/2022/08/british-diplomacy-in-the-dock There are alternative points of view, one ought to point out, probably including our likely new prime minister’s …

Plus, if you sign up for a free three-articles-a-month account with the New Statesman, this cross-cultural comparison from the 1920s by Bassett Digby, Values https://www.newstatesman.com/archive/2022/08/from-the-ns-archive-values

2. Very early warning of Oxford University Press’s English Language Teaching Online Conference (ELTOC) Chapter 3 on Friday 23^rd and Saturday 24^th September, just in case it books out (not sure if that’s still the issue with online events that it used to be) https://elt.oup.com/feature/global/eltoc/?cc=gb&selLanguage=en

A little more detail on the programme, which includes Nicky Hockly on What’s up with WhatsApp? and Hayo Reinders on Digital Wellbeing, here https://elt.oup.com/events/global/eltoc-chapter-3?cc=gb&selLanguage=en&mode=hub

3. There’s some fine early photos from the nineteenth century in this National Archives blog post, Early photography in India: Tracing photographers through copyright records https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/early-photography-in-india-tracing-photographers-through-copyright-records/

Another recent post, Garveyism: a letter from the black working class https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/garveyism-a-letter-from-the-black-working-class/ also caught my eye. Bernard Mason, the author of the letter, is writing on behalf of himself and a group of black seamen to the then (UK) Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, in August 1921.

4. And, finally, a random classical fact: the island of Cres https://goo.gl/maps/PDmkzeVFc7T9tcZ56 – where I’m delighted to be for the first time in three years – was known in antiquity as the Apsyrtides, because of its resemblance to the severed limbs of the unfortunate Apsyrtus, slain by his sister, Medea, to distract their father from his pursuit of her and Jason …