News Snapshot:
In July 1817, Lord Amherst, the leader of a British delegation to China, stopped on his return journey at Saint Helena and met the exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon had seldom been out of the news, but Amherst himself was also in the news for having pointedly refused to kowtow when having an audience with the Chinese emperor. As Sir Brian Unwin notes in his book on Napoleon’s exile, Amherst was berated by Napoleon for having refused to kowtow – not to himself, the former emperor of France, but to the Chinese emperor. One should observe the customs of the country,...