Sorry to hear that! I’ll keep my fingers crossed that something else turns up.

In fact, the Voltaire Foundation in Oxford work with LLM technologists (I’m currently drafting an article together with one.) Maybe they can help? Plus, they have the world’s experts on the different editions that exist.

Actually the PhD/DPhil even was on Voltaire - Emilie was a side project. But then poor Voltaire got abandoned as well.

The notes are behind a paywall sadly. But there are so many edition of the _Contes_ that my advice would be trying an LLM, too.

Finally got @svenbeckert.bsky.social ’s latest. It’s huge in many ways. A book you can win any argument with. Not just because it’s a brilliant global history of capitalism (though it is). Also because, should all else fail, you can hit your opponent over the head with it & instantly knock them out.

Remember to be wary, as today is the only day of the year that incorrect or misleading information is posted on the internet.

Thank you! I hadn’t tried that yet.

Thank you! I’ve used them extensively for their digitisations - but I had no idea there was a search function! We don’t have institutional access sadly, so I’m only had a personal one which has now expired. But I will look into it. Thanks for the tip!

Any tips, thoughts, or insights would be hugely appreciated.

Then there is "Bissendas” and “Likikander” (described as “noir”) and “Guicham” and “Sirmond” both described as “gentil” (i.e. Hindu). “Manichaudery” and “Durgaramitter”are both noted as Muslims, and, just to make things really clear a “Likikander” is described as _both_ Muslim and Hindu.

I know next to nothing except their names - and those only in questionable French transliterations: "Cokvasin", a Muslim merchant with a substantial fleet; "Merza Gonaverdy" who they employed as vakil in legal proceedings;

Can the hive mind can help me with a question on #earlymodern commercial culture in #India? In my research I identified (or rather failed to) four individuals who Prussians East India Company servants had dealings with during their time in 1750s Bengal. Can anybody help me find out more about them?

One of our main outputs from our www.migration-innovation.org project is now available in open access!

Thank you! You were far quicker than I was to post about this.

Fair enough, though. Have you been to Wigan?

Associate Professorship in Eighteenth Century History at University of Oxford Explore an exciting academic career as a Associate Professorship in Eighteenth Century History. Don't miss out on other academic jobs. Click to apply and explore more opportunities.

Associate Professorship in Eighteenth Century History- Faculty of History - Worcester College- University of Oxford #skystorians 🗃️#c18th www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQE665/a...

À lire également sur @cairninfo.bsky.social

👉 shs.cairn.info/revue-annale...

Thank you! I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve 😊

OPEN LETTER TO THE GUARDIAN Dear Editors, We write in reference to a recent article published in the UK online edition of The Guardian on Friday, 23 January 2026, which carried the following misleading headline: "British crown was world's largest buyer of enslaved people by 1807, book reveals." The article in question, by Chris Osuh, showcases a new book by Dr. Brooke Newman, The Crown's Silence: The Hidden History of Slavery and the British Monarchy (Harper Collins, 2026). But Newman's book is not the original source of that claim. That claim derives from earlier scholarship, the painstaking archival work of a Black historian of Caribbean heritage: the late Roger Norman Buckley. It is unfortunate that the silencing of his original scholarship appears in the profiling of a book advertised as uncovering silences. While it is great to see public attention brought to the history of the Crown's involvement in slavery through the new book and its profiling in The Guardian, the headline compromises The Guardian's efforts to address the legacies of slavery generally and its own institutional links when it extracts and reframes earlier work by a Black scholar as a revelation new to this book. The relevant passage in The Crown's Silence draws on original scholarship by Roger Norman Buckley in Slaves in Red Coats: The British West India Regiments, 1795-1815 (1979). Dr. Brooke Newman repeats Buckley's figures, which she cites (referencing page 55 of Buckley's book, see attached) while changing his "British government" to "Crown." She then converts his careful "perhaps the largest individual buyer" to a more conclusive claim, changing his "British government" to "king" but without citing Buckley for that claim which is on page 56 of his book (see attached) and which, uncited in Newman's book, is the Guardian headline. There is room for popular histories that rely largely on the secondary scholarship of other historians. But other historians have not been silent.

Page from Buckley’s 1979 book

2nd page from Buckley’s 1979 book

An open letter to @theguardian.com about their article last week about the Crown’s Silence, requesting that the Black scholar of Caribbean heritage who did the years of archival research behind this claim, and published it in 1979, Roger Norman Buckley, be acknowledged as the source of this reveal:

Program | Global 1776 Global 1776 is an academic conference on the global dimensions of the American and other late-eighteenth-century revolutions

Incredibly excited about the #global1776 #history conference programme!

global1776.hku.hk/program

Looking for a postdoc opportunity outside the UK/US? I'm happy to support up to two JSPS postdoc applicants for the coming round for two-year posts starting from Sep./Oct. 2026 onwards at UTokyo. The application to be submitted before the end of March. 1/n

Get yourself a sledge and find a hill somewhere!

I don’t know actually, I should check.

She’s just amazing. Give her my regards when you see/speak to her!

I know the feeling. They’re clearly having a bad hair day.

But of course! (Sorry for the bad picture quality)

Claudia Schuster is their Curator of Shipping and Navigation. She’s incredibly nice. AND she managed to get the voice of Käptn Blaubär for their simulator where you can steer a sailing ship to port. Lifetime achievement.

The Deutsches Technik Museum used to have a piece that showed you how much space each enslaved person would have had onboard. You could try to crawl in. It was visceral.

Ooooh, if you want some super cool drawings and doodles of fish and even a sea monster wearing a crown from a 1750s ship‘s diary of an Emden to Canton voyage, send me a message. They are so fun!

IHR programme for the Europe & the World Seminar 12 January: Yahya Nurgat: The Politics of Sacred Space in the Early Modern Islamicate World: The Shrines of Karbala and Najaf 16 February: Frederica Gigante on "Enslaved Networks: Muslim Lives and the Movement of Knowledge and Things in the Early Modern Mediterranean" 9 March: Sheilagh Ogilvie: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid 23 March: Pablo Gómez: The Early Atlantic Slave Trade and the Invention of Modern Corporeality

AMENDED PROGRAMME! But with good news: we'd love to welcome you to *four* sessions this term, not three!

Join us @ihr.bsky.social on Mondays at 17:30, or on zoom (sign up for the link here: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...) #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

You were eight months ahead of me - and years ahead in productivity!
So impressed (and happy) to see all you’ve achieved since we last saw each other. Congratulations!!

Congratulations, Dr. Gunning! — Migration, Adaption, Innovation Today Oliver successfully passed his viva (subject to minor corrections). Oliver’s PhD “Skilled Migrants in the Glass Industry: Northern Britain 1674-1845” is one of our project’s major outputs

Our project’s PhD student just passed his viva with his brilliant thesis on Skilled Migrants in the Glass Industry. Many thanks to examiners Will Ashworth & Neil Murphy & to fantastic 2nd supervisor @drjenniferaston.bsky.social. Congratulations Oliver!! www.migration-innovation.org/news/congrat...