Douglas Peers

I have never seen a politician more directly copy this speech in my life

The Board of Peace has wasted no time starting its first war.

Book cover of Empire with a Vengeance, by Mark Condos. The coveri mage is a reproduction from the cover of Le Petit Journal, depicting the allied punitive expedition to Baoding during the Boxer Rebellion in China, featuring the execution of a Chinese official and destruction of the city's walls.

Are you interested in how revenge and honour shaped British and French colonial warfare? Then check out my new book, Empire with a Vengeance, published with @hurstpublishers.bsky.social.

Available now for pre-order from Waterstones: www.waterstones.com/campaign/feb...

@waterstones.bsky.social

Coomaraswamy Prize - Association for Asian Studies Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize The Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize honors a distinguished work of scholarship in South Asian Studies that promises to define or redefine the understandin...

I am thrilled that my book Music and Musicians in Late Mughal India: Histories of the Ephemeral 1748–1858 has now won the 2026 Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy prize (Association for Asian Studies/South Asia Council)! www.asianstudies.org/grants-award...

Honoured to share it with the great Charu Gupta.

and I am marooned between printmakers and block artists, Norwegian Football experts, supernatural fandom, and Canadian Soccer Community. Not sure what any of them did to deserve a neighbour like me

Rarely have I been to such an event that captured so well the personality, contribution and scholarly context of the historian. You could build a volume on the historiography of the British Empire around its many thoughtful talks.

Some respite from the news

This is an excellent article 👇

Dr Susan Elliott being inducted into the Royal Society of Canada

So proud

One of the many blue jays on the trails in the Hendrie Valley this morning - hoping it is good omen

In explaining why to be a truly separate country, Alberta must abolish Aboriginal rights, Bruce Pardy accidentally explains why Alberta can never become its own country. Indigenous rights precede Alberta's existence as a province.

Real genius, that one.

Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka says US revokes his visa Nigeria's Nobel Prize-winning author Wole Soyinka said on Tuesday the United States had revoked his non-immigrant visa issued last year and he was told to re-apply if he wished to try again to visit the U.S.

www.reuters.com/world/us/nig...

The East India Company spent most of the half-century prior to 1820 in various states of looming bankruptcy, vexatious scandal, and aggressive war. Famine and revolt erupted routinely on its watch. Is this a good thing?

"Britain used to administer an empire from a company building around Downing Street in the 1820s,” the Reform MP for East Wiltshire said during a press conference, arguing that in the past the number of staff needed to run departments was far fewer than today."

If the model here is that you let a private company conquer a country, co-opt local elites to exploit it for profit and govern it by force, while providing no public services and never worrying about elections, then, yes - this is a really good analogy, Mr Kruger.

figure it is about time for this!

Tim Cook, chief historian at Canadian War Museum, dies | CBC News Tim Cook, the chief historian at the Canadian War Museum and the country’s “pre-eminent military historian,” has died, the museum announced Sunday.

Well this is a gut punch.
I was just extolling the virtues of his books to my tutorial students this week. What a loss for the field and his family.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

As a Canadian I resent that when someone was needed to demolish a building at the US White House, our unique 211 year old record of expertise in that was ignored. I trust that in 3 years when it’s time to demolish the Epstein ballroom, Canada’s experience and willingness will be taken into account!

Anne Irfan | Balfour to Blair By endorsing the Trump plan, Keir Starmer continues the long-standing British position of denying the Palestinian people...

Balfour to Blair www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/oc...

"Warrior ethos." What bullshit. We don't have, nor do we want warriors. We have & want soldiers, members of disciplined teams, not individuals who do their own thing. I have a five paragraph vivisection of this in the forthcoming OUP Handbook of American Military History.

Obviously we all know Bluesky is a retirement home for elder millennials but, if you happen to know any 18-30 people who might like to take a shot at this, do pass it on!

Donald Trump’s penchant for bullshit explains MAGA anger about the Epstein files Donald Trump’s supporters perceive, perhaps for the first time, that they are now targets of his political bullshit about Jeffrey Epstein rather than amused witnesses to it. And they don’t like it

Great piece by an old friend and colleague.
Donald Trump’s penchant for bullshit explains MAGA anger about the Epstein files theconversation.com/donald-trump...

Full-time Academic positions Inspired by a strong tradition of social responsibility and an enduring commitment to the advancement of women, Mount Saint Vincent University promotes academic excellence and the pursuit of knowledge...

Hello everyone. Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax has a tenure-track job in Enlightenment rhetoric and / or 18th-century literature. Tell everyone.

www.msvu.ca/about-msvu/c...

History is the Front Line in the Struggle for Democracy | Common Dreams As the accumulation of executive orders since Trump’s inauguration manifestly shows, the fate of history in America is a bellwether for the future of democracy itself.

History is the Front Line in the Struggle for Democracy www.commondreams.org/opinion/trum...

It is only Monday and already I am identifying with this great blue heron having a bad hair day surrounded by turkey vultures

‘Can you tell us how he died?’: Mohamed Salah criticises Uefa over tribute to ‘Palestinian Pelé’ Footballer Suleiman al-Obeid was killed in an Israeli attack in southern Gaza last week, according to Palestine Football Association

www.theguardian.com/football/202...