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Legacy

Original Legacy Productions

Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan tell the wild stories of some of the most extraordinary men and women ever to have lived – and ask whether they have the rep they deserve. Should Nina Simone’s role in the civil rights movement be more celebrated than it is? When you find out what Picasso got up to in his studio, can you still admire his art? Was Napoleon a hero or a tyrant - or both? (And, while we’re at it, was he even short?) Legacy is the show that looks at big lives from the perspective of now – and doesn’t always like what it sees.

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Thursday · 41 min
Inbox: The People Australia Forgot | Santilla Chingaipe
What did one line on a gallery label reveal about Britain’s First Fleet? How did people who resisted slavery in the Caribbean end up in Australian penal colonies? And, what happens to Australia’s founding story when you put those people back into it? Afua Hirsch and Peter Frankopan talk to filmmaker and author Santilla Chingaipe about her book Black Convicts. At the National Gallery of Victoria, Chingaipe read that people of African descent had been aboard the First Fleet. The exhibition gave her no names, so she went looking. In the ship registers she found hundreds of people whose journeys took her from Jamaica and the Cape to the Australian penal colonies. She explains what those journeys reveal about Britain’s empire and shares the words of a ten-year-old boy she found in the archive. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&As, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm 00:00 - The First Fleet’s missing history 02:21 - Meet Santilla Chingaipe 03:33 - The gallery label 06:31 - Who was transported? 12:38 - The names become a pattern 14:43 - Women and the female factories 23:57 - A boy’s last words 32:01 - Following the money 34:18 - Who gets remembered? 39:28 - Where to find Black Convicts 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.
#181
Tuesday · 31 min
Tupac Shakur | Poet and Provocateur | 2
Why did the US vice president want Tupac’s debut album pulled from shops? What did Tupac see in a newspaper that made him write ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’? And, what happened when the persona he built began to take over? In Part 2 of the Tupac Shakur series, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch trace his rise from young rapper to film star and a target in America’s culture wars. After a Texas state trooper is killed, the defence points to a cassette of Tupac’s debut album. Vice President Dan Quayle calls for the record to be withdrawn. As the backlash grows, Tupac is making films with Janet Jackson and writing songs about Black women whose stories rarely make the headlines. Peter and Afua ask what his Thug Life tattoo was meant to say, and how much of the character he created he could leave behind. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&As, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm 00:00 The cassette at the centre of a murder case 01:29 How Tupac’s debut became a national controversy 03:46 The story behind ‘Brenda’s Got a Baby’ 09:23 Tupac goes to Hollywood 18:39 The women Tupac wrote about 20:55 What Thug Life meant to Tupac 27:24 The confrontations that followed fame 30:21 The case that leads into Part 3 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.
November 5 · 39 min
Inbox: A Ghost Story for Palestine | Amy Abdelnoor
Content warning: this episode includes discussion of war, killing and the ongoing violence in Gaza. Why did a cactus in an empty Palestinian village become the start of a novel? What happens when the ghost of a girl killed in 1967 asks a teenager from North London for help? And, why did Amy's tutor tell her, aged 20, to choose another cause? Peter and Afua talk to novelist Amy Abdelnoor about her debut, Ever Land. Amy volunteered in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and lived in Ramallah during the Second Intifada. Ever Land follows two girls. Safa is a Palestinian girl killed in the 1967 Six-Day War, who can't move on until she finds her little sister. Dinah is a Jewish teenager from London who moves to Israel decades later. Amy talks about the cactus plants that still mark emptied villages, why she chose fiction over non-fiction, the email that told her there are "two sides to every story", writing grief, and her Lebanese grandfather. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm 00:00 Introduction 03:07 What Ever Land is about 03:56 Why a ghost? The cactus in the empty village 08:25 Why fiction, not history 11:16 "Two sides to every story" 15:30 Writing as the world changed 20:46 Writing grief 24:05 Ghosts in the landscape 27:31 Is Safa every ghost? 30:30 Amy's Lebanese roots 33:40 "Choose another cause" 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.
#180
November 3 · 35 min
Tupac Shakur | Born Into the Struggle | 1
Content warning: this episode includes violence, drug addiction and references to sexual abuse. How did a pregnant Black Panther with no legal training defend herself against 156 charges, and win? Why did she name her son after the last Inca ruler, executed in Cusco in 1572? And, how did a ballet-dancing theatre kid become the rapper a US vice president said should never have been released? In the first of four episodes, Peter and Afua begin the story of Tupac Shakur. Thirty years after the shooting in Las Vegas, a jury has finally reached a verdict. But Tupac's story begins much earlier, in a Manhattan courtroom in 1971. His mother, Afeni Shakur, is on trial as one of the Panther 21. She is pregnant, she has sacked her lawyer, and she is facing life in prison. Peter and Afua follow her from North Carolina to the Black Panthers, and through the FBI's war on the movement. Then they follow her son. He grows up through New York, Baltimore and Marin City, and the episode ends with his first album. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. In this series, members also get bonus interviews with a former member of Tupac's crew and a filmmaker. legacy.supportingcast.fm 00:00 Las Vegas, 30 years on 03:26 Afeni Shakur joins the Panthers 06:34 Hoover, COINTELPRO and the Panther 21 10:46 Pregnant in jail 11:39 Afeni defends herself 15:23 Why "Tupac"? 20:47 A revolutionary family 24:11 Baltimore and the School for the Arts 29:46 Marin City 32:36 "Same Song" and the first album 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.
October 29 · 40 min
Inbox: Oranges, Sunshine and a Storm Coming | Sebastian Faulks
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 job 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.
October 27 · 2 min
Legacy Live: Elif Shafak | 16 November, Kings Place
Come and join us live! On Monday 16 November, Peter Frankopan and Afua Hirsch will be on stage at Kings Place in London with the wonderful Elif Shafak. Her extraordinary new novel, In One Brief Moment All Eternity, tells the story of Gustave Flaubert, the creator of Madame Bovary, through the eyes of the women whose lives shaped his, and whose stories have largely been forgotten. It's about who gets to tell history, whose voices are silenced, and why literature matters, especially in times of turmoil. The book comes out the day before, so this is a rare chance to hear Elif talk about it, and about history and memory, with us. Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/legacy-live-elif-shafak-in-conversation-with-afua-hirsch-peter-frankopan-tickets-2003929321545 Or through the Kings Place box office. More Legacy Live events are on the way in late 2026 and 2027. To hear about them first, 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.
#179
October 27 · 33 min
The Earth Transformed | The Eye of the Storm | 4
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 fight 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.
October 22 · 43 min
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.
#178
October 20 · 37 min
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.
October 15 · 22 min
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.
#177
October 13 · 41 min
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.
October 8 · 1 hr 3 min
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.
#176
October 6 · 38 min
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.
October 1 · 38 min
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.
#175
September 29 · 32 min
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.
September 24 · 40 min
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.
#174
September 22 · 31 min
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.
September 17 · 26 min
Inbox: The Falklands Campaign | Milei, Trump and Oil | Book Club
Why is a war fought 44 years ago back on the front pages? What happens when a combative president in Buenos Aires, a friend in the White House and an oil field due online in 2028 all point at the same islands? And, when 99.8% of the people who live there have already voted, whose islands are they to argue over? Fresh from Sir Lawrence Freedman's two-volume official history of the Falklands campaign, Peter Frankopan takes on the question Afua Hirsch can't let go: whose rights come first? The official record reads like a detective story: the orders, the officers' doubts, and a Prime Minister who went against some of her own senior ministers. But the argument behind it never went away. Afua sets out why the politics look upside down to someone who opposes colonialism. Peter traces Argentina's claim back to a 15th-century treaty. Then come Chagos, Guam and the British Virgin Islands, and the question of whether Britain applies its own principle consistently. There's also the odd matter of why Yair Netanyahu weighed in at all. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [1:15] A summer with Sir Lawrence Freedman's official history of the Falklands [2:34] Milei, Trump and oil: why a 1982 war is live again [7:18] Inside the official records, and Thatcher's gamble [10:54] Afua's question: whose rights? [14:08] 99.8%, and the islanders who've been there for 200 years [16:48] Chagos, Guam, the British Virgin Islands: is Britain consistent? [19:47] Two wrongs, red post boxes and the Victory Pub [24:44] Why Yair Netanyahu picked a side 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.
#173
September 15 · 39 min
9/11: 25 Years On | The Reckoning | 3
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: @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.
September 10 · 23 min
Inbox: Yesteryear | Waking Up in 1855 | Book Club
What happens to a trad wife influencer when she wakes up in 1855 and has to actually do it? Why were film producers bidding on this novel four years before it was finished? And when a story about white homesteaders in pre-Civil War America contains no Black people at all, what is it quietly telling you? Peter asks Afua what she read over the summer and gets a debut novel, a four-year-old email she'd forgotten about, and a criticism that has nothing to do with the plot. Caro Claire Burke's Yesteryear drops a trad wife influencer — sourdough starter, eight children, millions of followers — into an actual 1855 homestead and makes her live there. Afua raced through it and gives it full marks for the idea. Her objection sits somewhere else entirely, and it's the kind of absence you can't unsee once someone points at it. Along the way: why publishers post books to your house forever once you've written one, why Peter keeps being asked to read 550 pages in ten days, and how a novel now gets optioned for film before it has been written. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:26] The one thing Afua only lets herself read in summer [3:13] Books arrive forever once you're published, and the etiquette nobody explains [8:42] The novel Afua found sitting in her own inbox, four years early [12:47] Sourdough, eight children, and a fantasy of the American past [18:03] Peter on class and labour, and why Burke chose 1855 [20:28] Afua's real objection, and it isn't the plot [21:13] The Legacy Book Club verdict, in three separate scores 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.

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