A few weeks back I had the joy of attending the book launch of Intellectual Cooperation at the League of Nations. It has been a while since I attended an event like this, I used to sneak into them quite often due to the volume of universities in London, so it was quite a nice change.
Linkedin post with more detail on the event.
At the event, one interesting aspect of the research was mentioned – that part of the League’s work in the area of intellectual cooperation was investigating if common textbooks could be created for global use. In the post-WWI environment, this was an idea to help tackle global issues but the idea can clearly be seen today – for example in the desire to decolonialize curricula, provide global resources via OERs and related topics such as open access publishing. Whilst the LoN’s “Committee of textbook experts” had little success, more success was had in areas including student exchange, again, something in the 2025/2026 news given the UK’s possible reentrance to Erasmus.
Overall, worth a read (or at least a podcast listen) for anyone with an interest in the history of international organizations and/or education.
Whose Education Is It Anyway? 