Marc-William Palen
History Department, University of Exeter
Follow on Twitter @MWPalen

From chow mein and chips to how slavery research came under fire, here are this week’s top picks in imperial and global history.

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Chow mein and chips: a brief history of the British Chinese takeaway

Jamie Coates
Conversation

“I’ve never been so disgusted in my life.” Such was one Twitter user’s response to a recent video showcasing the spoils of a British Chinese takeaway order. “British Chinese” was trending on social media as American users analysed and criticised the cuisine, apparently bewildered by the “inauthentic” inclusion of chips or thick curry sauce.

British consumers and producers of Chinese food alike proudly showcased their takeaways in retaliation. Posters on either side of the debate sought to deem their version of Chinese food “authentic” or “traditional”, revealing the powerful connotations of these two words and their connection to culinary identity. There is no hard definition for what makes food authentic or traditional. Instead, food goes through a process of authentication. A dish once considered novel or adaptive can form a strong identity over time, eventually becoming traditional in its own right. Chinese food is a perfect example of this. It has always been produced in ways that blur both national boundaries and the borders between ethnic cuisines. [continue reading]

Henry Kissinger’s Documented Legacy

Peter Kornbluh and William Burr
National Security Archive

As Henry Alfred Kissinger (HAK) reaches 100 years of age on May 27, his centennial is generating global coverage of his legacy as a leading statesman, master diplomat, and realpolitik foreign policy strategist. “Nobody alive has more experience of international affairs,” as The Economist recently put it in a predictably laudatory tribute to Kissinger. During his tenure in government as national security advisor and secretary of state (January 1969 to January 1977), Kissinger generated a long paper trail of secret documents recording his policy deliberations, conversations, and directives on many initiatives for which he became famous—détente with the USSR, the opening to China, and Middle East shuttle diplomacy, among them.

But the historical record also documents the darker side of Kissinger’s controversial tenure in power: his role in the overthrow of democracy and the rise of dictatorship in Chile; disdain for human rights and support for dirty, and even genocidal, wars abroad; secret bombing campaigns in Southeast Asia; and involvement in the Nixon administration’s criminal abuses, among them the secret wiretaps of his own top aides. [continue reading]

Buckingham Palace declines to return remains of ‘stolen’ Ethiopian prince, say reports

Jamie Grierson
Guardian

Buckingham Palace has reportedly declined a request to return the remains of an Ethiopian prince who came to be buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th century. Prince Alemayehu, a claimed descendant of the biblical King Solomon, was taken to England – some say “stolen” – after British soldiers looted his father’s imperial citadel after the Battle of Maqdala in 1868. He died aged 18, after an unhappy childhood, and was buried at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle at the request of Queen Victoria.

For 150 years, Ethiopians have been asking when Alemayehu will come home. The Ethiopian government has pushed repeatedly for the prince’s remains to be returned. High-profile figures, such as Lemn Sissay, the poet and author, have joined campaigns to repatriate the young prince’s remains. [continue reading]

The Last Days of Berlin’s Gas Streetlamps

Alex Rennie
Atlas Obscura

IT’S A WARM SPRING EVENING in Chamissoplatz, a leafy square in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district. As the murmur of conversation spilling out of local restaurants blends with children’s laughter from the nearby playground, something magically mundane is about to happen. It starts around sunset with the clicking sound of the neighborhood’s beloved gas lamps firing up. Then comes the familiar golden glow Berliners have lived by for nearly two centuries.

But these scenes are fading fast in the city home to more than half the world’s working gas streetlamps. Since 2011, the German city has been working on converting them to LED alternatives—a process brought back into sharp focus by climate change and Russia’s war against Ukraine—leaving conservationists feeling that Berlin is losing something with enormous cultural and practical value. [continue reading]

The backlash: how slavery research came under fire

Samira Shackle
Guardian

When the historian Nicolas Bell-Romero started a job researching Cambridge University’s past links to transatlantic slavery three years ago, he did not expect to be pilloried in the national press by anonymous dons as “a ‘woke activist’ with an agenda”. Before his work was even published, it would spark a bitter conflict at the university – with accusations of bullying and censorship that were quickly picked up by rightwing papers as a warning about “fanatical” scholars tarnishing Britain’s history.

Bell-Romero, originally from Australia, had recently finished a PhD at Cambridge. He was at the start of his academic career and eager to prove himself. This was the ideal post-doctoral position: a chance to dig into the university’s archives to explore faculty and alumni links to slavery, and whether these links had translated into profit for Cambridge. It was the kind of work that, Bell-Romero said, “seems boring to the layperson” – spending days immersed in dusty archives and logbooks, exploring 18th- and 19th-century financial records. But as a historian, it was thrilling. It offered a chance to make a genuinely fresh contribution to burgeoning research about Britain’s relationship to slavery. [continue reading]