A clearer view of global capitalism | Brief letters
Sven Beckert review | Degrees of uncertainty | Calendar switch | Amended sign | Faux Cyrillic Dorian Lynskey’s review of Sven Beckert’s book Capitalism: A Global History (23 December) expresses caution as well as appreciation. However, Beckert’s approach is a much-needed antidote to Eurocentric and culturalist understandings of the emergence of industrialisation. It is still common in the UK to find museums and books that attribute the 19th-century global dominance of Lancashire textiles solely to new machinery and market competition, ignoring the role of British military and naval power in destroying the hitherto dominant Bengali textile industry. Mary Searle-Chatterjee Halton, Lancashire • The editors of the Guardian’s style guide tell us that for units they predominantly use the metric system (Is it Twixmas or Twixtmas? And other style guide conundrums we have faced this year at the Guardian, 29 December). Could I urge them to embrace the International System of Units and improve clarity by reintroducing the degree symbol into temperatures? Surely 18°C is clearer than 18C . Barbara Bain London Continue reading...
Sven Beckert review | Degrees of uncertainty | Calendar switch | Amended sign | Faux Cyrillic
Dorian Lynskey’s review of Sven Beckert’s book Capitalism: A Global History (23 December) expresses caution as well as appreciation. However, Beckert’s approach is a much-needed antidote to Eurocentric and culturalist understandings of the emergence of industrialisation. It is still common in the UK to find museums and books that attribute the 19th-century global dominance of Lancashire textiles solely to new machinery and market competition, ignoring the role of British military and naval power in destroying the hitherto dominant Bengali textile industry.
Mary Searle-Chatterjee
Halton, Lancashire
• The editors of the Guardian’s style guide tell us that for units they predominantly use the metric system (Is it Twixmas or Twixtmas? And other style guide conundrums we have faced this year at the Guardian, 29 December). Could I urge them to embrace the International System of Units and improve clarity by reintroducing the degree symbol into temperatures? Surely 18°C is clearer than 18C .