Legacy

What were British soldiers doing in Palestine in 1945, between the oranges, the swimming and the bombs?Why does the Christmas show in Sebastian Faulks's Jerusalem swap Gilbert and Sullivan for Oscar Wilde?And, how did a novelist who plans everything end up with a twist he never saw coming?Sebastian Faulks tells Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch how his father's posting, hundreds of hours of soldiers' memories and a much-missed friend became his new novel, Farewell to Eden.His father was sent from Italy in late 1945 for what the army called "rest and peacekeeping", and was there when the King David Hotel was bombed. Sebastian built the book from the Imperial War Museum's sound archive, a 1949 diary kept by the Uruguayan member of the UN committee that drew the borders, and the memory of his closest friend, the Guardian's Middle East editor Ian Black, who first explained it all to him in their first week at Cambridge. Plus Amos Oz's grandparents, who thought Palestine was "too Asian", a padre's vision on Easter Saturday, the grey "tundra" of post-war Britain, and why Sebastian had to unlearn the idea that happy endings are vulgar.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] Oranges, sunshine and a storm coming[2:22] A boarding school, October 2023 and an old friend[5:52] His father's "rest and peacekeeping" in 1945[15:17] The Irgun, a bombing in Rome and no easy sides[18:53] Faith in the Holy Land, and a Christmas show in Jerusalem[24:51] The twist even he didn't plan[26:56] How grim post-war Britain really was[29:43] Why happy endings aren't vulgar[33:04] Crosswords, coffee and 1,000 words a day[38:14] A diary from 1949 and the UN's impossible jobStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What did a run of terrible Caribbean hurricanes have to do with American independence?How did a volcano in Indonesia help give us Frankenstein?And, why were so many of the people fighting for civil rights also fighting for the planet?In the next part of The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch follow the storms, eruptions and campaigners that changed the course of history.Why Europeans didn't just build their plantations in West Africa, and how mosquitoes helped draw the line between America's North and South. Hurricane-wrecked islands desperate for food, rope and wood, and American merchants furious that London decided who they could sell to. Then the year without a summer: Mary Shelley's rain-soaked holiday at Lake Geneva, soldiers home from the Napoleonic Wars with no work, and the massacre at Peterloo. Plus a jumbo jet that flew into volcanic ash, Frankenstein at Cold War disarmament talks, and why Coretta Scott King, Rachel Carson and Greta Thunberg belong in the same story.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] Hurricanes, volcanoes and the women who fought for the planet[1:49] Founding mothers, and history without the weather[3:34] Why not build plantations in West Africa?[9:29] The hurricanes behind American independence[13:07] Frankenstein and a gothic childhood[14:22] Mount Tambora and the year without a summer[18:02] A jumbo jet, an ash cloud and nuclear winter[23:38] Civil rights and the climate[26:55] Rachel Carson and Silent Spring[27:57] Why women led the fightStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why were the first cowboys in the Americas from West Africa?What does it mean in Akan culture when a man "eats from another woman's pot"?And, could a mosquito be the reason Ghana never became a settler colony like South Africa or Kenya?In the next part of The Earth Transformed, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch put Africa at the centre of the story, and find it at the centre of ours too.West African villages with no walls and no kings, because there was enough for everyone. An ancient Ghana nowhere near modern Ghana, and Mansa Musa's gold. Then food: why a Ghanaian host will never let you leave hungry, the European visitors who resented Africa's abundance, a colleague in Senegal who thought the perfect birthday present was a goat, and the jollof wars. Plus the genetic resistance to malaria that shaped the slave trade, and how the mosquito kept European settlers out of West Africa and sent Afua's grandfather to Cambridge.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] Land, food and race: three ways Africa shaped the world[2:01] Is "Africa" even the right word?[7:22] Villages with no walls and no kings[11:01] Two Ghanas, and Mansa Musa's gold[13:08] Why you'll never leave a Ghanaian home hungry[17:04] The first cowboys in the Americas[21:56] A goat for a birthday, and the jollof wars[25:57] Malaria, genes and the slave trade[29:50] How the mosquito kept settlers out of West Africa[32:56] Africans telling their own storiesStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If almost every early migration out of Africa failed, how did any of us get here?Why does an Akan word that once meant "person from beyond the cornfields" now mean a white person?And, when British politicians talk about net migration, who are they leaving out?Peter Frankopan takes Afua Hirsch through 50,000 years of people on the move, using the new illustrated edition of The Earth Transformed.A green Sahara full of lakes. Romans who conquered half the world but didn't spread their genes. Huns and Mongols running empires like a business that had to grow every year. Then the long scars the slave trade left on trust in West Africa, and the Gold Coast students who came to Britain long before Windrush. Plus 150 million people on the move in a single century, and Afua's prediction for 2050. And a school where Wednesday homework was translating Sanskrit into Urdu, and why speaking five Ghanaian languages never earns the respect that French does.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] 50,000 years of people on the move[2:07] The surest way to lose an election, and Vikings who are fine in hindsight[8:19] Almost every early migration out of Africa failed[13:23] Skin colour, vitamin D and why race is a social construct[16:47] Rome, the Huns and empire as a business model[20:22] The Mongols in Hungary, and the Greek idea of the stranger[24:23] "Beyond the cornfields": the scars you can still hear in a word[28:11] The migration nobody counts: Britons leaving[31:44] 2050: will Britain wish it had immigration?[36:04] Languages, Sanskrit homework, and which ones count as "sophisticated"Stay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why does the ancient Greek word for bravery come from the word for man, and what did bronze spears have to do with it?How does one of the coldest decades in 2,000 years end with around 100,000 women on trial for meddling with the weather?And, what links a woman blamed for a hailstorm in the 1590s to ten young protesters superglued to an oil company's headquarters in London?Afua Hirsch reads Peter Frankopan's The Earth Transformed for the women in it, from Bronze Age weapons to the police station where she once defended those ten protesters.Part one of Her Story and the Natural World. Hunter-gatherer women with the bone strength of Olympic athletes, Akan market women who still run the trade, and the scapegoat logic that turns a bad harvest into a witch trial. Plus the women written out of the civil rights story, and why everyone who dreams of being a Spartan pictures themselves next to Leonidas, never as the cook at the back with no teeth.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] Weapons, magic spells and superglue: what do they have in common?[1:07] Why the word "herstory" still rattles people[7:49] The Bronze Age losers, and how bravery became a man's word[12:38] Tradwives, Spartans and the history nobody actually wants to live[16:20] Curses, churches and witchcraft in West Africa[21:53] A freezing decade, 100,000 trials and the women blamed for the storms[27:41] Coretta Scott King, Amy Ashwood Garvey and the women written out[31:32] Afua's first case: ten women glued to a buildingStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What were the taxi drivers of 1990s Accra playing on repeat?How does a woman who swore she was "not a bit political" write a hit about being used up and spat out by the system?And, what does it take for the most unmistakably white icon in American country music to become the unproblematic queen of a Nigerian girl growing up in Peckham?Afua Hirsch hands the Dolly Parton question to her friend Kelechi Okafor — author, podcaster, voice artist and pole studio owner — and Peter Frankopan discovers he is the last to know that West Africa loves country music.Part two of two. Missionaries, a banjo with West African roots and a grandfather in cowboy boots in Lagos; the royalties, the military and the art of choosing your hypocrisies; and the day Dolly Parton's Imagination Library asked for Kelechi's own picture book, then came back for it a second year. Underneath it all, the question part one left hanging: did everyone give Dolly a pass that Beyoncé never gets?Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] The tribute that travelled furthest didn't come from Nashville[2:40] Patsy Cline, Jim Reeves and a cassette player in the headboard[4:20] Accra taxis, the banjo, and a secret hundreds of millions already knew[8:41] Unpicking "unproblematic white queen", and choosing what you're a hypocrite for[11:37] The Imagination Library comes calling for Kelechi's picture book[14:35] Dumb Blonde as a business plan, all the way to the bank[18:09] Church ladies, queer fans, and the pass Beyoncé never gets[23:24] Peckham, Yoruba, and why a songwriter chose booksStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who says no to Elvis Presley — and is proved right eighteen years later?How does a girl from a one-room cabin with no electricity work out the economics of music publishing before most of Nashville has?And, in an age that agrees on almost nothing, how did Dolly Parton end up claimed by drag queens, evangelicals and everyone in between?Peter Frankopan opens on the phone call that cost Dolly Parton an Elvis record, and Afua Hirsch traces what that refusal was really protecting.Part one of two. Locust Ridge to Nashville, the Porter Wagoner years, and the moment a songwriter worked out that the leverage was never in the performance. Along the way: a theme park propping up one of Tennessee's poorest counties, a book scheme built for a father who never learned to read, and a working women's anthem that half the people singing it have never thought about. Underneath it all, a harder question — whether being loved by everybody is a strategy, and what it costs to hold on to.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] Elvis wants the song. Then the phone rings.[2:08] One room, twelve children, and a childhood with its own acronym[5:33] Nashville the day after school finishes, and no plan B[8:05] The double act that made her, and the goodbye song that ended it[12:55] Half the publishing, one sleepless night, and a fortune left on the table[15:11] 9 to 5: the most political song she never called political[18:35] A theme park, 4,000 jobs and billions into East Tennessee[26:07] Dixie, Black Lives Matter, and the edges of staying out of itStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Content warning: this episode describes torture, civilian deaths and the 2021 Kabul airport attack.Bin Laden is dead, al-Qaeda is shattered, and there was never another 9/11 — so who won?What does a war cost once you count the hospitals that closed and the food that never arrived?And what does it mean that the United States signed an agreement with the people it went to war to destroy?Twenty-five years on, Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan add up the bill — and find that bin Laden had written the strategy down in advance.February 2020: the United States signs a deal with the Taliban in Doha. The government of Afghanistan is not in the room. Eighteen months later the Afghan state collapses in a matter of days, Kabul airport fills with people willing to cling to the undercarriage of a departing aircraft, and America's longest war ends almost exactly twenty years after it began. Then comes the audit. Brown University puts the direct death toll at more than 940,000, and the total — once you count the collapsed health systems, economies and food supplies — at somewhere near 4.7 million. The attack that started it cost around half a million dollars. The response cost eight trillion. Bin Laden had a phrase for that: he called it bleeding America. The final part of three.Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fm[0:00] The uncomfortable question: how much of what he wanted did bin Laden actually get?[4:25] Doha, February 2020: the deal, and the government that wasn't invited to sign it[6:39] Not a gradual collapse — provincial capitals fall in a matter of days[11:53] The audit: $8 trillion, 940,000 killed directly, and 3.6 million more[14:56] "Bleeding America" — bin Laden wrote the plan down and said it out loud[19:29] Afghan women, and the argument nobody makes any more[30:23] What the rest of the world was doing while America looked the other way[36:09] The question neither of them wants to answer: whose fault is Afghanistan now?Stay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.comJoin Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.legacy.supportingcast.fmStay connected with Legacy:Instagram: @originallegacypodcastTikTok: @legacy_productionsExplore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.