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
• Nothing happened anywhere in Great Britain on 5 September 1752 (Letters, 29 December), because 2 September was followed immediately by 14 September as the country switched from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.
Roger Dennis
Colchester
• Many years ago, an old fingerpost at a road junction on the A155, guiding motorists to villages near Spilsby, Lincolnshire, read “To Old Bolingbroke and Mavis Enderby”. Beneath had been added: “A son” (Letters, 1 December)
David Ranner
Boldron, County Durham
• The faux Cyrillic that infuriates me the most (The hill I will die on, 28 December) is the logo for Toys Я Us. I used to irritate my family by always pronouncing it correctly as Toys Ya Us.
Caroline Ewans
London
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