Twenty-first century history is being made each day. The news is full of statue-toppling anarchists and clueless looters, politicians making life and death decisions on COVID-19, increasing cybercrime and human rights abuses, loss of respect for longstanding international conventions of the sea and air … and the list goes on. 

Language is debased, with attacks on individuals rather than the robust and respectful exchange of ideas, and it is often a struggle to see past the polemic. 

At times like these, there can be a realisation of a desperate need for knowledge and skills to examine ourselves and our past to reassure ourselves...