The outcome of the First Opium War had been a triumph for Britain, albeit one Gladstone described as ‘more calculated in its progress to cover this country with permanent disgrace’. It did not achieve Britain’s diplomatic and trade goals, however. To achieve these another war was needed and for that a casus belli. That came in the form of what must be one of the most dubious reasons for ever starting a war – the Arrow Incident.

To enable Chinese merchant ships to trade around the Treaty ports on the same terms as the Merchant Navy, the British granted flag rights to Chinese vessels at Hong Kong. Theoretically, a British-flagged Chinese vessel now came under British protection. So, when one such vessel, the Arrow, was seized by the Chinese authorities and its crew detained, Britain opened hostilities. Thus began the Second Opium War.

All was not quite as it seemed, however. The greatest outrage for the British press was not the seizure, but that the British captain reported the Chinese tore down and trampled the British flag. While British-flagged local ships all carried British captains, they were not required to be on board and were more for show than use. Thomas Kennedy of the Arrow was certainly not on board at the time his ship was seized. Nor was his ship British-flagged, as the registration had expired: it was officially Chinese and sailing under false colours. As for the crew, they were all released – bar three, who were held on piracy charges related to the Arrow’s former career.

Simplistic analogies shed far more heat than light

Ali Ansari, Professor of Modern History, University of St Andrews

There are lessons to be learnt from our collective historical experience but what we are witnessing at the moment, in our febrile political atmosphere, is the reckless conscription of narratives to ideological purposes. This is not at all uncommon in many countries where history and politics remain unsettled and narratives are fiercely contested. But in Britain we have become used – some might say to the point of complacency – to a gentler politics and more settled history.

The politics of the past few years has clearly unsettled us and we yearn for explanations from our history. But such has been the shock to the system that in our anxiety we have responded with narratives that are both politically pointed and historically pointless. Among the more idiotic if persistent analogies have been that of the ‘War’, with each side drawing on events and personalities that suit their cause, be it Dunkirk or the rise of Fascism. Other periods have not been neglected, not least that of the Civil Wars. These, too, naturally, have their limitations, as the recent argument over whether Boris Johnson can be better identified with Charles I or Cromwell (he would probably prefer Churchill).

Hong Kong’s summer has been marked by widespread political unrest. The trigger was a proposed bill that would allow the territory’s government to extradite Hong Kong residents to countries with which Hong Kong did not have an extradition treaty. Prominently, these included mainland China. The Hong Kong government argued that the bill would close a ‘loophole’ that made the territory a potential haven for criminal fugitives. To Hongkongers, the bill looked like the latest example of a creeping ‘mainlandisation’.

When the United Kingdom negotiated the terms of Hong Kong’s ‘handover’ to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, the people of the city did not have representation in the discussions. Under the terms of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration, Hong Kong would enjoy the status of a Special Administrative Region until 2047, with ‘considerable autonomy’ and would be governed by the people of Hong Kong. Under the terms of the 1986 Basic Law, the territory would preserve its capitalist system as well as independent courts, currency and immigration system.

‘It is asked of all who hear this work that they do not revile it because a woman translated it. That is no reason to despise it, nor to disregard the good in it.’ Many female writers have probably said, or wanted to say, something very like these words. They were written in the 12th century, around 1170, by a woman who composed one of the earliest texts from England known to be by a female author. She was a nun of Barking Abbey in Essex and, though we do not know her name, her words – and her work – demand attention.

The work she asks us not to disregard is a narrative of the life of Edward the Confessor, written in Anglo-Norman French (‘the false French of England’, the nun modestly calls it). Its author was an educated woman, able to turn a Latin source into engagingly chatty French verse and Barking Abbey must have been a congenial environment for her. Founded in the seventh century, Barking was one of the foremost nunneries in the country, a wealthy abbey which was home to many well-connected aristocratic and royal women. Its abbesses were frequently appointed from the sisters and daughters of kings and, around the time our nun wrote her Vie d’Edouard le Confesseur, Thomas Becket’s sister Mary – herself a woman of literary interests – was made abbess of Barking in compensation for her brother’s murder.

During the reign of Sultan Mehmet IV (r. 1648-87), the Dîvân-ı Hümâyûn (imperial council) would meet every other morning in a domed chamber of the Topkapi Palace. When the Grand Vizier and his ministers had dealt with affairs of state, they would sit down to a magnificent lunch. Like the palace itself, the meal was a microcosm of the Ottoman Empire. There were six courses, each more sumptuous than the last. First came dane, a fragrant rice, known elsewhere as pilaf. Then there was şurba-ı makiyan (chicken soup), followed by çömlek aşi (a delicate stew, made from lamb or beef). After this came a sweet dish, such as baklava or muhalebbi (milk pudding); and, to round it off, there was a kebab or köfte. The centrepiece of the whole meal, however, was börek – a savoury pastry made from yufka (a delicate, filo-like dough) and filled with feta cheese, parsley, chicken, minced meat and, occasionally, a few vegetables, such as potato, spinach, leek or courgette. Delicate yet flavoursome, it was revered as the culinary epitome of Ottoman culture: a taste of poetic refinement, courtly elegance and timeless urbanity.

Sisters Augusta and Adeline Van Buren, descendants of Martin Van Buren, the eighth US president, crossed the United States on motorcycles in 1916, riding 5,500 miles in 60 days on hazardous roads. The previous year, Effie Hotchkiss had completed the same journey, with her mother, Avis, in a sidecar.

Why did they do it? They wanted to be dispatch riders for the army. This was for two reasons. First, in 1916 America looked likely to enter the First World War and it seemed unprepared. As such, the sisters became important players in the ‘Preparedness Movement’ to try to get America ready for war. Second, as part of the campaign to win women the vote, the sisters wanted to show that women could do any job a man could – in their case, becoming dispatch riders. This, they argued, had the added benefit of freeing men for other duties, such as fighting.

They set out from Brooklyn on 4 July, riding high-end 1,000 cc Indian Power Plus motorcycles. En route, they were repeatedly arrested, not for speeding but for wearing men’s clothes – military-style leggings and leather riding breeches.

They arrived in Los Angeles on 8 September after a journey beset with both obstacles and achievements. At one point they got lost in the desert near Salt Lake City and were only saved by a passing prospector after they had run out of water. But they became the first women to reach the summit of Pikes Peak in Colorado by motor vehicle.