1. Radio 4’s Book of the Week this week is Weimar: Life on the Edge of Catastrophe by Katja Hoyer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002w5pm

Katja Hoyer’s ‘Weimar – On the Edge of Catastrophe’ – is informed by the meticulous diary of Carl Weirach a bookseller who moved to Weimar in 1914. It follows the lives of the residents of the town of Weimar – a town renowned for its cultural heritage as the birthplace of Goethe and a town beloved by Schiller, Bach, Liszt and Nietzsche. Weimar is Germany in a nutshell, the former German president Roman Herzog once said, ‘a town in which not only culture and thought were at home but also philistinism and barbarism.’

2. And here’s the matching Engelsberg Ideas podcast with Katja Hoyer, Weimar’s descent into darkness, in which the author discusses her book with Alastair Benn https://engelsbergideas.com/podcast/weimars-descent-into-darkness/

3. An anthology piece (i.e. one with lots of links to other articles) by Jonathan Este for The Conversation, Iran war has shown the limits of US power https://theconversation.com/iran-war-has-shown-the-limits-of-us-power-282421

In his 1873 book ‘On War’, the great Prussian military strategist Carl von Clausewitz wrote that: “War is the realm of uncertainty.” He would have been at home in Washington this week where Clausewitz’s “fog of war” appears to have descended on the White House, at times obscuring reality. On Tuesday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, briefed reporters that the US plan was to get the Strait of Hormuz “back to the way it was: anyone can use it, no mines in the water, nobody paying tolls”.

4. Here’s an important recent UNESCO publication, their AI competency framework for teachers https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000391104 PDF below as well.

AI processes vast information, generates new content, and helps decision-making through predictive analyses. In education, AI has transformed the traditional teacher-student relationship into a teacher-AI-student dynamic. This shift requires a re-examination of teachers’ roles and the competencies they need in the AI era. Yet, few countries have defined these competencies or developed national programmes to train teachers in AI, leaving many educators without proper guidance. This AI competency framework for teachers addresses this gap by defining the knowledge, skills, and values teachers must master in the age of AI.

5. And, finally, a little AI-free Keith Jarrett https://youtu.be/eVuW8fktIxE