Afua Hirsch

Shows

Episodes

  1. Inbox: Barbara Cartland, The Great Dictator | Matthew Sweet

    4d ago

    Inbox: Barbara Cartland, The Great Dictator | Matthew Sweet

    How did a woman lying on a sofa with a Pekingese on her lap write 723 books? Why did the queen of pink chiffon put shoe polish on her eyelashes? And, if she sold around 750 million copies, why can't you find her books in a shop today? Matthew Sweet, author of the first biography to take Barbara Cartland seriously, tells Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch how a Doctor Who audio play about alien bookworms led him to her private papers. A house left almost untouched since she died in 2000. A father killed in the Great War, two brothers lost at Dunkirk, and two suitors who threatened to shoot themselves if she said no. Then the paradox: a woman who told readers to put their husbands first while working six days a week, a Tory councillor who fought for travellers' rights, and the author of sex advice manuals. Plus Private Eye's cruellest cartoons, bought and hung in her downstairs loo, the Nigerian romance writers who name her as their inspiration, and why Matthew will never sit on her sofa. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] 723 books, a Pekingese and shoe polish on her lashes [4:14] Alien bookworms: the strangest way into a biography [7:00] Why "The Great Dictator": a lost fortune and a family rebuilt by work [9:41] Writing from the couch: war, grief and the women left behind [17:37] The Tory councillor who fought for travellers' rights [21:21] Nigerian romance writers, and her plan to conquer the world [25:12] War paint: the lashes, the hair and the dog [28:33] Private Eye cartoons in the downstairs loo [31:00] Motherhood, and a family where everyone had to confess [37:53] Third best-selling author ever, so why has she vanished? Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  2. The Earth Transformed | Africa and Us | 3

    6d ago

    The Earth Transformed | Africa and Us | 3

    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 stories Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  3. Inbox: Six Men, Three Vans and a US Air Base | Iran, Putin and Oil

    Oct 15

    Inbox: Six Men, Three Vans and a US Air Base | Iran, Putin and Oil

    How do six men in three vans outside a Cotswolds air base end with America flying its bombers home? What can 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel actually do for American drivers? And, are a quiet corner of England, an airport in Riyadh and the war in Ukraine all part of the same story? In this Legacy Inbox episode, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch try to work out how the week's biggest stories fit together. A farmer who spotted men in balaclavas, a suspect who rang the police on himself, and Peter's three theories for what really happened at RAF Fairford. Then Houthi missiles hitting King Khalid Airport, the long war in Yemen the world stopped watching, and a diesel deal with Putin that covers roughly one American morning. Plus Trump's call for Ukraine to find a new leader, the Nobel Peace Prize he didn't win, and a rare moment when Afua changes Peter's mind about how Americans see Russia. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Iran, Saudi, Ukraine and the Cotswolds, all in one week [1:05] Men in balaclavas outside RAF Fairford [3:53] Three theories: diesel thieves, an Iranian plot, or a US exit plan [9:20] Houthi missiles hit Riyadh, and the war in Yemen nobody watched [12:06] Trump, Putin and a diesel deal worth one American morning [14:36] The Nobel Peace Prize, and the court under threat [16:38] Do Americans still see Russia as the bad guy? [21:05] Is it all connected? Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  4. The Earth Transformed | The World in Motion | 2

    Oct 13

    The Earth Transformed | The World in Motion | 2

    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: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  5. The Earth Transformed | Her Story and the Natural World | 1

    Oct 6

    The Earth Transformed | Her Story and the Natural World | 1

    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 building Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  6. Inbox: The Bayeux Tapestry and the Arrow Nobody Can Prove | Sue Brunning

    Sep 24

    Inbox: The Bayeux Tapestry and the Arrow Nobody Can Prove | Sue Brunning

    Why are a million people about to queue at the British Museum for a strip of embroidered linen? What if the most famous picture of 1066 isn't a tapestry, was probably stitched in England, and treats the losing king as a hero? And, if the arrow in Harold's eye was stitched back in by 19th-century restorers, how sure are we of the one thing everyone knows about 1066? With the Bayeux Tapestry in Britain for the first time in nearly a thousand years, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch sit down with Sue Brunning, the British Museum curator who helped bring it here and waved Sutton Hoo off to France in exchange. Sue takes them through the bishop who probably paid for it and gave himself a starring role, the English women who likely stitched it, and a Harold who looks nothing like a villain. Then come six women in 68 metres, three of them naked; a cleric, a woman called Ælfgyva and a slap nobody can explain; and a battle sequence brutal enough to send visitors out shaken. And then there's the arrow. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] 68 metres of linen, home after nearly a thousand years [3:33] From a Sandhurst summit to Bloomsbury, with Sutton Hoo sent the other way [7:53] Why it isn't a tapestry, and why 1066 changed everything [11:55] Harold the hero, hauling Normans out of the quicksand [13:14] Bishop Odo, Canterbury and the women with the needles [17:39] Six women, three naked, and a slap nobody can explain [21:43] The battle that leaves visitors shaken [26:44] Restorers, fading dyes and the arrow in Harold's eye Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  7. Inbox: The Correspondent | The Power of Letter Writing | Book Club

    Oct 8

    Inbox: The Correspondent | The Power of Letter Writing | Book Club

    What happens when an author gets rejected eight times, writes a ninth novel in hand-written letters, and ends up at number one on the New York Times bestseller list? Why are we so drawn to storytellers, tradwives, and 73-year-old law clerks who reject email in favor of pen and paper? And, what does a 73-year-old fictional letter-writer have in common with the rise of the AfD in Germany and the political power of nostalgia? Afua Hirsch brings her summer read — Virginia Evans’s Women’s Prize-winning novel The Correspondent — to Peter Frankopan, and what starts as a book review turns into a deep dive into rejection, class, ageism, and the performance of identity. A 73-year-old former lawyer firing off petty grievances to her gardening club while hiding her deepest heartbreaks; Marlon James demanding his friends destroy his rejected manuscript; and why late-stage capitalism makes everyone treat their personal identity like a brand. Plus: why both Peter and Afua write their best work between midnight and 4:00 AM. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  8. Inbox: The Invisible Machine Behind Everything | Ed Conway

    Oct 1

    Inbox: The Invisible Machine Behind Everything | Ed Conway

    Why did the cod in your fish fingers go to China and back before it reached your freezer? What does a medieval king blocking English wool from Flanders have to do with Xi Jinping's grip on rare earths? And, if China can now build cars far more cheaply than Europe or America, could the West lose its car industry altogether? Ed Conway, Sky News economics and data editor and Times columnist, takes Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch down the hidden supply chains behind everyday life with his new book, Trade World. The sliced white loaf that can't be made without wheat from the far side of the world. The cotton fields of Gujarat, where farmers have no idea where their crop ends up. The Corn Laws as the original Brexit, the West African cocoa farmers who've never tasted chocolate, and what David Ricardo really thought about free trade. Then comes the warning about cars that Afua hopes is wrong, and suspects isn't. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] North Sea, Shandong, back again: the fish finger's secret round trip [2:48] The invisible network beneath everything you own [8:29] Edward III, Flemish wool and Xi Jinping's rare earths [13:10] Why your toast depends on wheat from the other side of the world [17:21] The Corn Laws, free trade and the Brexit echo [21:03] Gujarat's cotton fields, and a farmer who never asks where it goes [26:51] Was Ricardo right, and what did he actually say? [32:09] The car industry Europe and America could lose Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  9. Dolly Parton | It's Dolly Parton's World and We're Living In It | 1

    Sep 22

    Dolly Parton | It's Dolly Parton's World and We're Living In It | 1

    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 it Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  10. Dolly Parton | Unproblematic White Queen | Feat. Kelechi Okafor |2

    Sep 29

    Dolly Parton | Unproblematic White Queen | Feat. Kelechi Okafor |2

    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 books Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  11. Modern Travel | The Original Gap Year | 1

    Jul 28

    Modern Travel | The Original Gap Year | 1

    What actually turned a teenage aristocrat into a "finished" gentleman in the 1700s? Why did one incredibly long, incredibly expensive holiday end up inventing the whole idea of "the West"? And why can you still trace a straight line from that holiday to Frankenstein, the contents of half of Britain's country houses, and this year's tenth anniversary of the Brexit vote? Send a nineteen-year-old aristocrat to Europe for three years with a credit line and a chaperone paid to keep him out of trouble, and what comes home is part fashion victim, part looter, part accidental philosopher — the invention of modern Western identity, Frankenstein, and a culture war about "the Continent" that's still running. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Peter admits his own anti-aging anxieties before Afua reveals what the new series is really about [3:34] Meet "The Original Gap Year" — and the ex-priest travel blogger who coined the term [13:51] The bear leader — the 18th-century minder whose entire job was damage control [15:51] The macaronis — home from Italy in silk and powder, mocked as "un-British" [21:19] Standing where Gibbon stood — how one ruin becomes an entire theory of civilisation [24:56] A wrecked holiday, a volcano, and a ghost story that becomes Frankenstein [25:37] Ten years since the Brexit vote — and the Grand Tour's fingerprints are still on it [31:09] Where Chatsworth's marble busts actually came from Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  12. Inbox: Genghis Khan and the Empire We Got Wrong | Marie Favereau

    Sep 3

    Inbox: Genghis Khan and the Empire We Got Wrong | Marie Favereau

    Who taught you that the Mongols only destroyed things? What if the empire that sacked Baghdad also invented blue and white porcelain, elected its leaders, and let the Khan's first wife decide on war? And why do the Mongols still have a worse reputation than any other empire in history — including the ones that lasted longer and killed more? In this Legacy Inbox episode, Peter is joined by Marie Favereau, one of the world's leading historians of the Mongol Empire, whose work has done more than anyone's to dismantle the story of a bloodthirsty wave that destroyed everything in front of it. A small group of nomads from what is now Mongolia — probably fewer than a million people — reached Central Europe within sixty years. They did it partly by fighting in winter, when everyone else went home, and by bringing their families and their herds with them so they never had to depend on the villages they passed through. Then they stopped conquering and started building: cities, workshops, tax systems, religious debates at court, and a trade network running from Korea to the Mediterranean. Marie Favereau is co-curator of Genghis Khan: How the Mongols Changed the World, at the Royal Armouries in Leeds until 1 November — almost 250 objects out of Mongolia, most of which have never left the country before. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Peter introduces Marie Favereau, and the 248 objects that have just landed in Leeds [5:48] Ridden, eaten, milked, worn — why everything starts with the horse [9:47] Khans are elected, can be deposed, and the senior wife decides on trade, diplomacy and war [13:22] "If you just build your empire on the family, you have a dead-born empire" [16:44] Blue and white porcelain turns out to be a Mongol invention [36:12] Why the Mongols get a worse press than any empire that came after them Genghis Khan: How the Mongols Changed the World runs at the Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, until 1 November 2026. Adults £9, concessions £7, under-16s free. Co-curated by Marie Favereau and Natasha Bennett. royalarmouries.org/leeds/whats-on/genghis-khan Marie Favereau's book The Horde: How the Mongols Changed the World is published by Harvard University Press. Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  13. Inbox: The Secret Global History of Bruges

    Jul 30

    Inbox: The Secret Global History of Bruges

    What's a garnet mined in Sri Lanka two and a half thousand years ago doing in a silver hairpin dug up near Bruges? Why are the Duke of Burgundy and the conqueror of Constantinople staring each other down for the first time in history? And, how did most of Belgium forget that its own counts once sat on the throne of Constantinople? Afua turns interviewer as Peter opens the doors on Bigger Picture, the exhibition he has spent four years building to reframe Bruges as one of the great connected cities of the medieval world. It's the opening show at BRUSK, Bruges' vast new exhibition hall — 250 objects from 90 lenders, among them a Memling released from Turin, a Vatican portrait of Alexios I Komnenos that has never been lent before, and Gentile Bellini's Mehmed II brought face to face with Philip the Good. Along the way: a very Belgian silence, a wall of Bruce Springsteen memoirs, the price of medieval pepper — and Peter greeting visitors as a hologram. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Afua opens the Legacy inbox on Peter's four-year secret project [3:04] A very Belgian silence, a coffee break, and the job is Peter's [9:13] Asked to pick one object, Peter picks three [12:20] Philip the Good meets Mehmed the Conqueror, five centuries late [16:14] How the counts of Flanders ended up emperors of Constantinople [27:42] Hologram Peter, and how to see the show before 8 September Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  14. Modern Travel | Rise Of The Seaside | 3

    Aug 11

    Modern Travel | Rise Of The Seaside | 3

    Who decided that the sea — cold, dangerous and full of smugglers — was somewhere you went for fun? What kind of doctor prescribes plunging into the Channel naked in the dead of winter, and then drinking it? And how did the towns Britain built to enjoy itself end up among the most deprived places in the country? The holiday — the whole idea that ordinary people are owed one — starts with a Brighton doctor, a shed on wheels and an Act of Parliament, and Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch follow it from there to the boarded-up promenades of the present. Dr Richard Russell published a book in the 1750s arguing that seawater cured everything from scrofula to melancholy, and that you ought to drink it by the pint, with milk or port to take the edge off. The elites followed him to a fishing village called Brighthelmstone, the Prince Regent built a pleasure palace there, and once the railways arrived the whole thing belonged to everybody. Then cheap flights took it away again. What the Victorians left behind is a coastline of magnificent architecture standing in some of the poorest wards in England — and, lately, the first signs of something coming back. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] From the Grand Tour to the stick of rock — the moment travel stopped belonging to the rich [8:52] Before the deckchairs: smugglers, pirates and a coastline you kept well away from [9:51] Dr Richard Russell, the eighteenth-century wellness influencer who told Britain to drink the sea [13:17] Peter jumps into the Antarctic in his swimming trunks, shamed into it by a woman in her eighties [17:57] The steam train, the Bank Holidays Act, and the week the mills shut down [20:53] The bathing machine: a shed, a horse, and a strong local person to dunk you [29:54] Clacton, Jaywick, and what happened to the towns Britain built to enjoy itself [35:09] Margate, Dreamland, and whether hipsters can fix a structural problem Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  15. Inbox: Lindsey Graham and the Price of a Seat at the Table

    Aug 27

    Inbox: Lindsey Graham and the Price of a Seat at the Table

    How does a man go from calling Donald Trump a kook and a jackass to becoming his closest ally in the Senate? What do you give up to keep a seat at the table, and what do you actually get for it? And when the obituaries settle on calling you a pilot fish, has anything you did survived you? Lindsey Graham flew home from Kyiv on a Friday and was dead by Saturday evening, aged 71 — Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch on a career built almost entirely on proximity to other people's power. He was orphaned in his early twenties and raised his younger sister. He was the first in his family to go to university, served in the Air Force, and reached the Senate in 2002 by taking Strom Thurmond's seat. For a decade he was the Republican who legislated with Democrats: the Gang of Eight immigration bill, one third of the three amigos alongside John McCain and Joe Lieberman. Then he called Trump a race-baiting, xenophobic religious bigot and said the party would be destroyed and would deserve it. Then McCain died. A year to the day before January 6th, the Republican strategist Steve Schmidt gave Rolling Stone the line that has followed Graham ever since: he is a pilot fish, the small fish that swims beside the shark and takes on its colouring. Peter and Afua on whether that is the whole story, and on what a seat at the table is worth. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] A flight home from Kyiv, a cardiac arrest on Capitol Hill, and a death nobody saw coming [6:14] A restaurant, a pool hall, two funerals, and a younger sister to raise [9:13] The three amigos, and the decade Graham spent legislating with Democrats [11:42] A kook, a jackass, and a party that would be destroyed and would deserve it [12:46] "McCain died" — the two-word answer to how everything changed [17:24] The pilot fish, the shark, and what a seat at the table actually costs Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  16. Inbox: Zhu Rongji and the Price of Modern China

    Aug 20

    Inbox: Zhu Rongji and the Price of Modern China

    Why does a kettle cost less than ten pounds? What kind of official refuses to send the army against protesters in one decade, then puts thirty million people out of work in the next? And when the man who built modern China spent his last twenty years saying nothing at all, what was he saying? Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch disagree, at length and on the record, about whether the architect of the modern cheap economy was brave or simply ruthless. Zhu Rongji died in Beijing in August, aged 97. Outside China his name means very little. Inside China, and inside every container ship leaving Ningbo, it means a great deal. He trained as an electrical engineer, was expelled from the Communist Party for speaking approvingly of economic reform in Hungary and Yugoslavia, spent five years doing manual labour during the Cultural Revolution, and came back to run Shanghai. In 1989 he refused to send the army against the city's protesters and went on television to talk them down instead. Then, as premier, he dismantled the iron rice bowl and cost somewhere between thirty and forty million people their jobs. Peter thinks that took nerve. Afua thinks ruthless and callous are the better words. Neither quite talks the other round. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Three deaths in eight weeks, in Havana, Washington and Beijing — and why the deputy often tells you more [4:30] Zhu Rongji, dead at 97, and why a kettle costs less than ten pounds [6:08] Expelled from the Party, then five years of manual labour [8:38] Shanghai, 1989: the man who would not send in the army [11:47] Grasping the large, letting go of the small — and the end of the iron rice bowl [17:00] Brave or callous? Peter and Afua fail to agree Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  17. Modern Travel | The Other Grand Tour | 2

    Aug 4

    Modern Travel | The Other Grand Tour | 2

    What happened when the people written out of the Grand Tour wrote their own account of it? What did an eighteenth-century Bengali diplomat see in London that made him call the British a conceited race? And how did a man from Bihar end up as shampooing surgeon to the King of England? Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan follow the travellers the Grand Tour left out — enslaved servants, Black abolitionists, Indian intellectuals — and find them looking back at Europe with a colder eye than Europe ever turned on them. Frederick Douglass and Sarah Parker Remond met in Rome in 1868, two free Black Americans taking in the ruins of one slave society while campaigning against a living one. Mirza Abu Talib Khan toured Britain and reported home that its true religion was money. I'tesamuddin filled a notebook with the wonders of Europe and the conceit of its inhabitants. And Sake Dean Mahomed opened a vapour bath in Brighton and gave English the word shampoo. The Grand Tour was never only white men learning Latin — it was the moment the world started looking back. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] The Grand Tour you think you know — powdered wigs, Roman ruins, enough marble to fill a museum [3:01] The servants who weren't servants: enslaved Africans on the road to Italy and France [4:29] Frederick Douglass, viral superstar, meets Sarah Parker Remond in Rome [8:36] Ira Aldridge plays Shakespeare to the aristocrats who came for the ruins [13:40] Bihar to Brighton — and the word that came with him [17:54] Europe judged: spiritually hollow, morally compromised, excessively fond of luxury [25:24] The Maharajas whose Cartier and Rolls Royce orders kept European luxury solvent [36:24] What actually killed the Grand Tour, and whether Magaluf is its heir Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  18. Modern Travel | The Age of the Skies | 4

    Aug 18

    Modern Travel | The Age of the Skies | 4

    When did flying stop being the most glamorous thing a person could possibly do? What kind of industry fixes its own prices by law, and then competes on how much champagne it can pour? And what happened to the man who broke it? Sir Freddie Laker swept floors at an aircraft factory, worked out that the entire airline business was upside down, and got taken apart for it — Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch on the man whose bankruptcy made your budget flight possible. For most of the twentieth century the airlines ran a legal cartel. IATA fixed the fares, so a London to New York ticket cost the same on Pan Am, TWA or BA, and the only thing left to compete on was luxury: forty inches of legroom, professional chefs, sterling silver, a side of beef carved in the aisle. It was magnificent, and roughly eighty-five per cent of people never got on a plane. Then Laker put a transatlantic seat on sale for fifty-nine pounds and let people queue on the pavement outside Victoria for it. The industry drove him under inside five years, then adopted everything he had done. What is left is a world where five billion people fly each year, three per cent of them internationally, and the seat in front of you gets a little closer every season. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Peter hates airports, Afua loves them, and the words "you're a Terminal Five girl" [5:19] The legal cartel — how IATA fixed every fare and left nothing to compete on but champagne [6:39] Forty inches of legroom, a chef, and a side of beef carved at your seat [8:13] Nail polish, posture, and the finishing-school standards applied to an air hostess [11:36] Freddie Laker, the Canterbury boy who swept factory floors and broke the cartel [13:23] Fifty-nine pounds to New York, and people sleeping on the pavement outside Victoria [21:57] Four per cent of climate change, and the cities buckling under weekend visitors [30:57] Why business class keeps improving while your seat keeps getting thinner Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  19. Mystics | Nostradamus: The Arophecary | 1

    Apr 28

    Mystics | Nostradamus: The Arophecary | 1

    Nostradamus has predicted every major disaster in history — or so the internet would have you believe. Peter and Afua get behind the myth to meet the real man: a plague-era apothecary, rejected by the medical establishment, whose greatest invention wasn't prophecy — it was selling certainty to an anxious world. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

  20. 9/11: 25 Years On | The World That Made 9/11 | 1

    Sep 1

    9/11: 25 Years On | The World That Made 9/11 | 1

    Content warning: this episode describes the events of 11 September 2001 in detail. What if the deadliest terror attack in history began with an American chequebook? What if the men who carried it out had once been armed, trained and celebrated by the West as freedom fighters? And what if the whole thing was set in motion more than twenty years earlier, on Christmas Eve? Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan begin the story of 9/11 two decades before it happened, in the mountains of Afghanistan. July 1979: Jimmy Carter signs off half a million dollars of covert aid to Afghan rebels, and a CIA programme called Operation Cyclone begins. By 1987 it is running at $630 million a year, matched dollar for dollar by Saudi Arabia. Among the thousands who answer the call to fight the Soviets is the softly spoken son of a Saudi construction billionaire. Twenty-two years later, nineteen men walk through airport security in Boston, Washington and Newark carrying box cutters that nobody had thought to ban. This is the first of three episodes marking twenty-five years since 9/11 — where al-Qaeda came from, what happened on the day, and the moment almost the entire world stood with America. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] The story doesn't start in New York — it starts in the mountains of Afghanistan [2:17] Christmas Eve 1979, and Soviet transport planes land at Kabul airport [4:04] Operation Cyclone: Carter, Brzezinski, and a plan to build Moscow its own Vietnam [7:48] Romanticised as freedom fighters — and the Saudi billionaire's son who answers the call [12:01] Afua puts it to Peter directly: did the CIA fund bin Laden? [16:38] The Soviets leave, the West loses interest, and bin Laden names his new organisation [23:32] A cloudless blue Tuesday, and a primary election in New York [29:39] Two and a half hours, nineteen men, and the deadliest terror attack in history Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Stay connected with Legacy: Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions Explore 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.

Afua Hirsch on Apple