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Origin Story

Podmasters

What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey dig into the astonishing secret histories of concepts you thought you knew. Want to support us in making future seasons? There are now two ways you can help out: • Patreon – Get early episodes, live Zooms, merchandise and more from just £5 per month. • Apple Podcasts – Want everything in one place with one easy payment? Subscribe to our premium feed on Apple Podcasts for ad-free shows early and bonus editions too. From Podmasters, the makers of Oh God, What Now?, American Friction and The Bunker.

  1. J.K. Rowling – Part Two – Transparent

    26 MAY • ORIGIN STORY + EARLY ACCESS

    J.K. Rowling – Part Two – Transparent

    Welcome back to Origin Story and part two of the story of J.K. Rowling. In this episode we turn away from her life story towards her public statements and the information she is consuming. In 2020, Rowling publishes her first full-length statement about her gender-critical beliefs and it becomes her defining issue. We unpack some of the phrases she uses and the books she is reading and we explore what the science says about key issues: safety in trans-inclusive spaces, trans women (and women with Differences in Sex Development) in sports, and healthcare provision for gender-questioning youth. Since 2018 trans people in the UK have faced an enormous backlash: rising prejudice, restricted healthcare, political abandonment and obsessive media hostility. And Rowling has put herself in the forefront. Her tone has become more aggressive and her activism more overt, accelerated by Scotland’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. So when HBO announced its ambitious new Harry Potter TV series last year, in the midst of the Trump administration’s war on trans Americans and the UK Supreme Court’s explosive ruling on gender identity, it became a battleground. It’s hard to separate the art from the artist when supporting the art means funding the artist’s activism. How did Rowling move from the appearance of moderation to explicit militancy and how does that align with her professed values? Are her arguments supported by the research? How did anti-trans sentiment go mainstream so quickly? What are the ethics of continuing to consume Rowling’s work? And is the viciousness of right-wing transphobia causing some people to think twice about the consequences of their beliefs? Reading list Articles • O. Rose Broderick – ‘Evidence Undermines “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria” Claims’, Scientific American (24 August 2023) • Cass Review: Final Report (2024) • Christina Cauterucci – ‘Impeccable Timing, Pamela Paul!’, Slate (16 February 2023) • Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026) • Matt Craig – ‘J.K. Rowling is a Billionaire — Again’, Forbes (30 May 2025) • Laura Dattaro – ‘Largest study to date confirms overlap between autism and gender diversity’, The Transmitter (14 September 2020) • Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025) • Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024) • Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020) • Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020) • Amelia Hansford – ‘JK Rowling sets up “women’s fund” to support gender-critical legal cases’, Pink News (26 May 2025) • Nick Hilton – ‘JK Rowling, Britain’s gloriously nasty novelist’, New Statesman (15 January 2024) • Katherine J. Igoe – ‘JK Rowling’s Under-the-Radar Book Series Gives a Clear Picture of Her Beliefs’, Marie Claire (5 August 2020) • Jessica Kant – ‘Anatomy of a Moral Panic’, jessk.org (3 February 2024) • Jessica Kant – ‘Welcome to the anti-trans outrage factory’, jessk.org (8 February 2026) • Alice McCool – ‘How the US Christian Right and Anti-Abortion Lobbyists are Reshaping NHS Policy’, Byline Times (2 April 2026) • Parker Molloy – ‘The IOC’s New Policy Isn’t Really a Trans Story’, The Present Age (26 March 2026) • Noreen Nasir – ‘For women athletes of color, outsized scrutiny over gender is nothing new, historians say’, PBS News (4 August 2024) ... Reading list continues on Patreon Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk

    1hr 23min
  2. J.K. Rowling – Part One – Transformation

    15 HR AGO

    J.K. Rowling – Part One – Transformation

    Hello and welcome to Origin Story. This week we begin the story of J.K. Rowling and how the world’s most beloved author became its most divisive. How did she become obsessed with trans rights and how did her colossal wealth and celebrity shape the backlash? We’re telling two parallel stories. One is how Joanne Rowling transformed into J.K. Rowling. The first Harry Potter book comes out of dark times: a shattering bereavement, a terrible marriage, relative poverty and a crushing sense of failure. When it is published in 1997, it changes Rowling’s life beyond recognition: the publishing industry’s equivalent of Beatlemania. By 2000, the attention is overwhelming and the religious right is denouncing her for endorsing witchcraft. By the time she moves into fiction for adults in 2012, her life seems guarded but stable. But then she joins Twitter and becomes very interested in online discourse at the birth of “cancel culture”. The second story is about feminism’s fraught relationship with trans inclusion and the concept of gender identity. This has divided feminists since the second wave in the 1970s but it came to the fore in 2010s as trans visibility reached an all-time high and so-called “gender critical” feminists rallied to oppose the introduction of self-ID legislation. Disparate issues such as prisons, sports and youth healthcare were pulled into a movement that fundamentally denied gender identity. In the US, anti-trans activism was another wedge issue for social conservatives but in the UK it emerged from the centre left — and that’s where Rowling came in. This is also a story about social media and what happens when a disagreement about civil rights plays out on Twitter. That’s where, in 2017, Rowling begins quietly expressing interest in anti-trans voices. After some initial denials, she breaks cover in 2019 by supporting Maya Forstater, a tax specialist who claims to have lost her job due to her gender critical views. Overnight, this one tweet transforms Rowling’s reputation, mainstreaming the movement while dismaying many Harry Potter fans and horrifying trans people. This is the rupture. There is no turning back. What can Rowling’s early life tell us about the path she has taken over the last decade? What is her relationship to fame and fandom? Why did the question of trans rights become all-consuming? What do gender critical feminists believe? And why can people not even agree on what words to use? It’s a story of obsession, polarisation, celebrity, Twitter and how people can radically change. • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list Articles • Decca Aitkenhead – ‘JK Rowling: ‘The worst that can happen is that everyone says,‘That’s shockingly bad”’, The Guardian (22 September 2012) • Julie Bindel – ‘Gender benders beware’, The Guardian (31 January 2004) • Jackson Bird – ‘“Harry Potter” Helped Me Come Out as Trans, But J.K. Rowling Disappointed Me’, New York Times (21 December 2019) • Theara Coleman – ‘A timeline of JK Rowling’s anti-trans shift’, The Week US (April 2026) • Caroline Davies – ‘JK Rowling’s journey from Harry Potter creator to gender-critical campaigner’, Guardian (18 April 2025) • Sarah Ditum et al. – ‘An Oral History of the Gender War’, The Radical Notion (Autumn/Winter 2024) • Alona Ferber – ‘Judith Butler on the culture wars, JK Rowling and living in “anti-intellectual times”’, New Statesman (22 September 2020) • Molly Fischer – ‘Who Did J.K. Rowling Become?’, The Cut (22 December 2020) • Simon Hattenstone – ‘Harry, Jessie and Me’, The Guardian (8 July 2000) • Paris Lees – ‘On Germaine Greer and the Hypocrisy of the “Left”’, Vice (20 November 2015) • Eve Livingston – ‘How an Online Forum for Moms Became a Toxic Hotbed of Transphobia’, Vice (6 December 2018) • Dorian Lynskey – ‘The Burchill Ultimatum’, 33 Revolutions Per Minute blog (14 January 2013) • Ian Parker – ‘Mugglemarch’, New Yorker (24 September 2012) • Aja Romano – ‘Is J.K. Rowling transphobic? Let’s let her speak for herself.’, Vox (30 May 2025) • J.K. Rowling – ‘Text of J.K. Rowling’s Speech’, Harvard Gazette (5 June 2008) • Amia Srinivasan – ‘Who Lost the Sex Wars’, New Yorker (6 September 2021) Books • Hannah Barnes – Time to Think: The Inside Story of the Collapse of the Tavistock’s Gender Service for Children (2023) • Judith Butler – Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990) • Shon Faye – The Transgender Issue: An Argument for Justice (2021) • Helen Joyce – Trans: Where Ideology Meets Reality (2021) • Sean Smith – J.K. Rowling: A Biography (2001) ... reading list continues on Patreon Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    1hr 10min
  3. European Union – Part Three – The Expanse

    13 MAY

    European Union – Part Three – The Expanse

    Hello and welcome to the final part of the story of European union, in which we finally see the European Union come to pass — and run into trouble. The transition begins with Jacques Delors, a pragmatic idealist in the mould of Jean Monnet, orchestrating Europe’s great leap forward. As the Berlin Wall comes down (and so does Margaret Thatcher), the balance of power shifts from France to a reunited Germany. In 1992, the 12 member states sign the Maastricht Treaty, which turns the EEC into the EU and sets a timetable for a common currency, the euro. This is the peak of European confidence and ambition. As the EU takes on the challenges of assimilating Eastern Europe and achieving monetary union, inertia sets in and Euroscepticism emerges as a political force. The failure to agree a constitution is nothing compared to the eurozone crisis beginning in 2009. The crisis is ethical as well as financial, pitting German bankers against the Greek people and making the EU seem, for the first time, cruelly doctrinaire. Delors wails that it is “killing Europe”. Eurozone drama and anti-immigrant populism make 2016 an ominous year for the UK to vote on whether to remain in the EU. The “Yes!” of 1975 becomes an angry “No!” And yet the chaos of Brexit shows other restive nations what there is to lose. Perhaps it is existential danger, from Trump and Putin’s anti-European nationalism to populism and the pandemic, that makes the project feel essential despite everything. Perhaps the EU is remembering what it stands against, and therefore what it is for. Did the end of the Cold War actually make life harder for the European project? Why, after 1992, did the EU add members but lose momentum? What weaknesses were exposed by the eurozone crisis? How did the question of membership come to consume and derange British politics? Did it take the shock of Brexit to finally inspire mass Europhilia in Britain? Is Europe rediscovering its purpose in hard times? And why is the remarkable, hard-won achievement of European unity so easy to take for granted? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Anonymous – ‘Europe: Then It Will Live...’, Time (6 October 1961) • Roderick Beaton – Europe: A New History (2026) • Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi – Crusade of Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement (1943) • W.B. Curry – The Case for Federal Union (1939) • House of Commons – Schuman Plan debate (27 June 1950) • Roy Jenkins – A Life at the Centre (1991) • Morgan Jones – No Second Chances: The Inside Story of the Campaign for a Second EU Referendum (2026) • Tony Judt – A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe (1996) • Tony Judt – Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) • Tom McTague – Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 (2025) • Jean Monnet – Memoirs (1978) • George Orwell – ‘Toward European Unity’ (1947) • Fintan O’Toole – Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (2018) • Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli – The Ventotene Manifesto (1941) • Robert Saunders – Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018) • Martin Sustrik – ‘Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat’, LessWrong (20 March 2021) • Simon Usherwood and John Pinder – The European Union: A Very Short Introduction: Fourth Edition (2018) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    1hr 23min
  4. European Union – Part Two – Reality Bites

    6 MAY

    European Union – Part Two – Reality Bites

    Welcome back to Origin Story and part two of the story of European union. Last time we left Europe in 1955, with Jean Monnet’s European Coal and Steel Community bringing European nations together without military force for the first time. We pick up the story with another game-changing Europhile, the Belgian politician Paul-Henri Spaak. He convenes the Messina Conference on the “common market”, which leads in 1957 to the Treaty of Rome and the birth of the European Economic Community. Six nations come together “to lay the foundations of an ever-closer union among the peoples of Europe”. This is a period of both unprecedented economic prosperity and maddening political inertia, as France’s nationalist president Charles de Gaulle slams on the brakes, drives everyone to distraction, and says a furious “Non!” to UK membership. Although Britain has realised at last that it belongs in Europe, it takes a decade of frustration before prime minister Edward Heath can seal the deal. A whopping victory for “Yes” in the 1975 referendum seems like the last word on the matter, but there’s trouble ahead — and not just in Britain. By 1980, the EEC has added only three new member states and made its first tentative steps towards monetary union. The great visionaries Kalergi and Monnet have passed away. The UK’s new prime minister Margaret Thatcher looks set to become the next De Gaulle. And the EEC is wrestling with huge challenges like decision-making, agriculture, regional inequality and the accession of poorer nations emerging from authoritarianism. We end with the arrival of Jacques Delors and the next great leap forwards: at last, a true European Union is on the cards. How did Spaak convince European leaders to turn a coal-and-steel arrangement into a proper economic community? Why was Charles de Gaulle so determined to sabotage the alliance he sought to lead? Why did Britain finally decide to come off the sidelines of Europe and how did it become a politically explosive issue? What did Europe learn about the perils of stagnation? And what faultlines in the project are we still dealing with today? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Anonymous – ‘Europe: Then It Will Live...’, Time (6 October 1961) • Roderick Beaton – Europe: A New History (2026) • Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi – Crusade of Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement (1943) • W.B. Curry – The Case for Federal Union (1939) • House of Commons – Schuman Plan debate (27 June 1950) • Roy Jenkins – A Life at the Centre (1991) • Tony Judt – A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe (1996) • Tony Judt – Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) • Tom McTague – Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 (2025) • Jean Monnet – Memoirs (1978) • George Orwell – ‘Toward European Unity’ (1947) • Fintan O’Toole – Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (2018) • Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli – The Ventotene Manifesto (1941) • Robert Saunders – Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018) • Martin Sustrik – ‘Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat’, LessWrong (20 March 2021) • Simon Usherwood and John Pinder – The European Union: A Very Short Introduction: Fourth Edition (2018) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    1hr 9min
  5. European Union – Part One – Come Together

    29 APR

    European Union – Part One – Come Together

    Hello and welcome to season nine of Origin Story. After last season’s history of socialism, we’re returning to our usual format of taking on a completely different topic each time, and we’re starting with a big one. As we approach the 10th anniversary of the UK voting to leave the EU, we’re telling the three-part story of European union itself: not just the 33-year-old organisation — an incredible achievement that is too easily taken for granted — but the much older concept. We begin by explaining how Europe came to think of itself as an identity as well as a continent. For centuries, Europe was synonymous with something else, whether it be the Roman Empire, the Catholic Church or the values of the Enlightenment. The only efforts to unify its peoples were through imperial domination, from the Pax Romana to Charlemagne to Napoleon. It was the desire to avoid war between nation states that inspired the dream of the United States of Europe, and the cataclysm of the First World War that gave that dream real urgency. We meet two extraordinary and visionary men who dedicated their lives to bringing Europe together. Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the so-called grandfather of the European Union, was an Austrian-Japanese aristocrat and ardent internationalist whose Pan-European Movement kept the dream alive between the wars, inspiring the likes of Einstein, Freud and Churchill. Jean Monnet was the brandy merchant, diplomat and wartime fixer who came out of the Second World War with a serious plan to realise it: the European Coal and Steel Community. Churchill, who co-founded the Council of Europe, famously said that Britain should be “with Europe but not of it”. This ambivalence kept Britain outside the European project for more than 20 years but the real story of this period is the psychodrama between France and Germany: eternal enemies who became tense allies. We close part one in 1955, when the political aftermath of the war is finally resolved but the trauma still shapes Europe’s fears and desires. What did it mean to be European before the twentieth century? Did it always take a war to force nations to consider cooperation? Why was Kalergi such an influential figure and why does he still inspire far-right conspiracy theories? How did Monnet use the shock of the Second World War, and the seemingly mundane issue of coal and steel production, to set Europe on the road to union? And was Britain right to be sceptical or simply deluded? It’s an epic story of how war and peace turned utopian dreams into political reality. • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Anonymous – ‘Europe: Then It Will Live...’, Time (6 October 1961) • Roderick Beaton – Europe: A New History (2026) • Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi – Crusade of Pan-Europe: Autobiography of a Man and a Movement (1943) • W.B. Curry – The Case for Federal Union (1939) • House of Commons – Schuman Plan debate (27 June 1950) • Roy Jenkins – A Life at the Centre (1991) • Tony Judt – A Grand Illusion? An Essay on Europe (1996) • Tony Judt – Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (2005) • Tom McTague – Between the Waves: The Hidden History of a Very British Revolution 1945-2016 (2025) • Jean Monnet – Memoirs (1978) • George Orwell – ‘Toward European Unity’ (1947) • Fintan O’Toole – Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain (2018) • Ernesto Rossi and Altiero Spinelli – The Ventotene Manifesto (1941) • Robert Saunders – Yes to Europe!: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018) • Martin Sustrik – ‘Jean Monnet: The Guerilla Bureaucrat’, LessWrong (20 March 2021) • Simon Usherwood and John Pinder – The European Union: A Very Short Introduction: Fourth Edition (2018) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production www.podmasters.co.uk Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    1hr 24min
  6. Origin Story – Live at Bloomsbury Theatre, 15th April 2026

    22 APR

    Origin Story – Live at Bloomsbury Theatre, 15th April 2026

    This week’s episode is an edited version of Origin Story Live at London’s Bloomsbury Theatre on Wednesday 15 April 2026. It was a thrill to take the stage in the former terrain of Origin Story regulars such as Jeremy Bentham and John Maynard Keynes. Thanks to everyone who came along or watched the live stream, and to the people who helped make it happen. In part one, Ian unravels Matt Goodwin’s strange journey from ambitious young academic to GB News host, Reform UK candidate and fellow traveller of Viktor Orbán. Was he radicalised by his professional immersion in the far right, did he just follow the prevailing winds to money and influence, or was he always like this? Then Dorian breaks down Goodwin’s book Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity, in which Enoch Powell meets ChatGPT, London has fallen and good old Britain is being betrayed by something called “suicidal empathy”. As sloppy as it is unpleasant, it positions Goodwin as the UK’s cut-price answer to Stephen Miller but will his unique charmlessness scupper his political aspirations? Goodwin predicted that the “elites” (ie, anyone who disagrees with him) would hate his book and who are we to disappoint him? In part two, we take a much-needed mind bath and each select five films that we think illuminate the recurring themes we discuss in Origin Story, from Batman Begins to All the President’s Men. Finally, we take some questions, both political and personal, from our wonderful audience. • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • James Bloodworth – ‘Matthew Goodwin, Reform and the politics of resentment’, Prospect (16 July 2025) • Daniel Boffey – ‘“It’s about ego’: Matt Goodwin’s journey from far-right expert to firebrand Reform candidate’, Guardian (30 January 2026) • Josh Glancy – ‘The reinvention of Matt Goodwin, from professor to Reform radical’, The Times (31 January 2026) • Matt Goodwin – Suicide of a Nation: Immigration, Islam, Identity (2026) • Sam Leith – ‘The Illusion and Delusion of Matt Goodwin’, Spectator (30 March 2026) • John Merrick – ‘Matt Goodwin’s intellectual suicide’, New Statesman (24 March 2026) • Joe Mulhall – ‘The Opportunist Extremist: The Strange Radicalisation of Matt Goodwin’, Hope Not Hate (2025) • Mark Sellman – ‘Matt Goodwin accused of AI blunders in new book on migration’, The Times (26 March 2026) • Andy Twelves – ‘Did Matthew Goodwin use AI to write his book?, Spectator (24 March 2026) • Andy Twelves debates Matt Goodwin, GB News (27 March 2026) • Julia Carrie Wong – ‘Loathe thy neighbor: Elon Musk and the Christian right are waging war on empathy’, Guardian (8 April 2025) • Cathy Young – ‘The Bizarre Right-Wing War on... Empathy?’, The Bulwark (21 April 2025) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Videographer: Connor Newson. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    1hr 47min
  7. The General Strike – The Revolution That Wasn’t

    8 APR

    The General Strike – The Revolution That Wasn’t

    Hello and welcome to another bonus episode. It’s the centenary of the General Strike of May 1926, the most important industrial dispute in British history, but what really happened and did it really change Britain? One strange thing about the General Strike is that it happened when industrial relations, which had reached their fiery nadir before and after the First World War, seemed to be cooling down. But tensions between coal miners and mine owners got so bad that the Trades Union Congress had no choice but to join the fight, even though its leaders did not expect to win. It was a showdown that very few people wanted. The strike began at one minute to midnight on 3 May. The following nine days were intense, exciting and unprecedented. Future Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and future fascist Oswald Mosley backed the workers, Evelyn Waugh and the Mitford sisters joined the army of volunteers trying to keep Britain moving, and Virginia Woolf just complained. In some places, the strike became a proxy war between communists and fascists. Meanwhile, the BBC faced the first existential crisis of its short life, struggling to maintain impartiality while under the threat of a government takeover. The cast of characters is a kind of Origin Story all-stars, including prime minister Stanley Baldwin, chancellor and propagandist Winston Churchill, Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald, trade union heavyweight Ernest Bevin, BBC chief John Reith and Liberal peace-maker Herbert Samuel. The strike ended on 12 May because the TUC surrendered, to the dismay of many workers. At the time, it seemed like an unmitigated defeat for the unions, a humiliation for the Labour Party and a vindication for Baldwin’s Tories. But the long-term consequences were unpredictable and the strike’s legacy is still up for debate. How did the General Strike become inevitable when almost everybody was desperate to avoid it? What were those nine days like for people on both sides of the barricades? How did the BBC survive? Could the unions have won with different leaders or was it an impossible battle from the start? Why did a Tory victory lead so quickly to a Labour government and a stronger TUC? And why was Churchill such a dick about it? • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Stanley Baldwin – Prime Minister’s Statement, Hansard (3 May 1926) • David Brandon – The General Strike 1926: A New History (2023) • A. J. Cook – The Nine Days: The Story of the General Strike Told by the Miners’ Secretary (1927) • David Hendy – The BBC: A People’s History (2022) • Roy Jenkins – Churchill (2001) • Keith Laybourn – The General Strike of 1926 (1993) • Martin Pugh – ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (2005) • Martin Pugh – Speak for Britain! A New History of the Labour Party (2010) • Julian Symons – The General Strike (1957) • David Torrance – The Edge of Revolution: The General Strike That Shook Britain (2026) Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    1hr 25min
  8. Introvert / Extrovert – In Two Minds

    25 MAR

    Introvert / Extrovert – In Two Minds

    The terms introvert and extrovert have never been more popular. People seem to increasingly latch onto them as a core element of their personality, clinging to the personal definition they offer with ever-greater enthusiasm. Humans love to categorise things and there is nothing they like categorising more than themselves. We trace the weird story of these terms back to Vienna, on March 3rd 1907, when the Swiss psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl Jung first met the Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. What follows is a hysterical, combative and sexually charged relationship which left both men in a state of social disarray. But in his efforts to later work out what happened, Jung settled on a personality binary which proved extremely intuitive to the public at large.  Are these terms meaningful? Do they have scientific validity? And what are the dangers and advantages of defining ourselves in this way? Let's find out, as we delve into the world of personality types, psychoanalysis and what might genuinely be the single most preposterous intellectual dispute in the history of ideas. • Support Origin Story on Patreon • Buy the Origin Stories books on Centrism, Fascism and Conspiracy Theory  • Subscribe to Origin Story on YouTube Reading list • Peter Geyer – Extraversion – Introversion: what C.G. Jung meant and how contemporaries responded, AusAPT Biennial Conference Melbourne, Australia – October 25–27, 2012 • Carl Gustav Jung – "The Association Method", The American Journal of Psychology 1910-04: Vol 21 Iss 2 • Carl Gustav Jung – Psychological Types, Princeton University Press, 1971 • D. L. Johnson, J. S. Wiebe, S. M. Gold, N. C. Andreasen – Cerebral blood flow and personality: A positron emission tomography study, American Journal of Psychiatry, 156, 252–257 (1999). • Florencio (Jun) Kabigting, Jr - The Discovery and Evolution of the Big Five of Personality, GNOSI: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Human Theory and Praxis, Volume 4, Issue 3, June 2021 • Frank McLynn – Carl Gustav Jung: A Biography, St Martin's Press 1996. • The Invention of 'Introvert', Words Matter podcast, episode 51 Written and presented by Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey. Producer: Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

    59 min
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What are the real stories behind the most misunderstood and abused ideas in politics? From Conspiracy Theory to Woke to Centrism and beyond, Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey dig into the astonishing secret histories of concepts you thought you knew. Want to support us in making future seasons? There are now two ways you can help out: • Patreon – Get early episodes, live Zooms, merchandise and more from just £5 per month. • Apple Podcasts – Want everything in one place with one easy payment? Subscribe to our premium feed on Apple Podcasts for ad-free shows early and bonus editions too. From Podmasters, the makers of Oh God, What Now?, American Friction and The Bunker.

Information

  • Creator
    Podmasters
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    145
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Podmasters / Ian Dunt & Dorian Lynskey 2022
  • Provider

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