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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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#164
July 15 · 33 min
World Cup | Big Business | 6
How does a country where football is a minority sport end up hosting — and cashing in on — the biggest World Cup in history? What happens when FIFA stops behaving like a sporting federation and starts behaving like a multinational? And when the tournament generates $14 billion in a single World Cup, who's actually footing the bill? Twelve global sponsors, three and a half million fans through the turnstiles, and a World Cup final so dull it needed penalties to save it — Peter and Afua follow the money to USA '94. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] A World Cup arrives in a country that doesn't even like football [3:56] João Havelange and the birth of FIFA's global sponsorship machine [9:54] Nigeria and Saudi Arabia arrive to rewrite the football map [19:24] The post-communist world gets its own flag on the pitch for the first time [20:49] Hristo Stoichkov and Gheorghe Hagi become the stars of the tournament [23:37] Andrés Escobar's own goal, and a tragedy nobody saw coming [25:47] Brazil finally get the ending football's most-loved nation deserved [27:00] Why an African team winning the World Cup would change everything 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.
#163
July 14 · 34 min
World Cup | The End of the Cold War | 5
How does a country only three decades free of colonial rule end up humiliating the reigning world champions in the opening match? What happens when the last World Cup of the Cold War arrives just months after the Berlin Wall comes down? And can football ever really just be a game, when Roger Milla is dancing at a corner flag while an old world order quietly falls apart around him? Cameroon stun the reigning champions, Gazza cries in the semi-final, and Nessun Dorma becomes the unlikely soundtrack to the end of an era — Peter and Afua go back to Italia '90. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Maradona, a fading empire, and a World Cup arriving as Europe's map redraws itself [8:11] Cameroon walk out against the champions — and nobody gives them a hope in hell [9:15] Roger Milla, at 38, becomes the tournament's most unlikely superstar [17:04] Gary Lineker breaks Cameroonian hearts in the game of the tournament [24:18] Gazza cries, and England fall for their most fragile genius [26:40] Maradona, past his best, and the tragedy of peaking too soon [31:29] Why football still fails the geniuses it creates 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.
#162
July 9 · 25 min
Gary Lineker | Nation, Identity and the Beautiful Game | 2
What does it mean to cheer for the country that once colonised yours? Forty years on from the Hand of God, does one match still define how a nation sees itself? And when Ghana play England, who exactly is Afua Hirsch supposed to be supporting? Gary Lineker returns to relive 1986 — the Golden Boot, Maradona, and a quarter-final played four years after the Falklands War — before the conversation turns to something far more personal: identity, belonging, and what it means to wear a nation's shirt. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:54] Part two: Gary Lineker on nation, identity and the beautiful game [4:05] Forty years since the Golden Boot - and the Hand of God [6:56] The most famous goal in World Cup history, minutes after the worst [9:02] Afua wears her Ghana strip - and picks a side [9:32] What it means when the coloniser plays the colonised [16:05] Why England's diversity is now part of its story [20:00] Racism, FIFA and the women's game - coming on Legacy Plus 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.
#161
July 7 · 27 min
Gary Lineker | The Polictics Of The World Cup | 1
hould football and politics ever really be kept apart? What happens when the host nation is at war with one of the teams competing in its own tournament? And when FIFA hands its brand-new peace prize to Donald Trump, has the beautiful game lost the plot completely? Gary Lineker sits down with Legacy for the first of three conversations on the World Cup, drawing on forty years inside the game to explain why politics has never once stayed off the pitch. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] Gary Lineker and forty years at the heart of the World Cup [5:35] A history of politics gatecrashing every World Cup since Mussolini [8:23] Inside the Kremlin: Gary on meeting - and refusing to meet - Putin [14:23] Afua's own US visa troubles, and whether Gary's could be next [15:46] The White House note nobody expected [20:45] Would Gary refuse Trump the way he refused Putin? [23:33] Trump in a football kit: Gary picks his position 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.
#160
July 2 · 37 min
World Cup | The World of Dictators | 4
What happens when a World Cup final is played a few hundred metres from a torture centre? How does a newly independent nation humiliate the champions of Europe — and still get knocked out by a fix in plain sight? And when a boy from the slums of Buenos Aires beat England with his fist, was it the cruellest cheat in football — or perfect revenge? Afua and Peter follow the World Cup through its darkest decade — Argentina's generals roaring at finals while prisoners vanish next door, Algeria's reckoning with Europe, and a kid called Maradona turning a single match into a settling of old scores. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] A torture centre, a stadium, and the cheers that drowned out the screams [4:20] The general who seized power two years before kick-off [6:12] The final played within earshot of the 'death flights' [13:50] An African side wins a World Cup match for the very first time [15:40] Argentina need six goals against Peru — and somehow get them [17:38] The Dutch players who refused to shake a dictator's hand [20:35] Algeria stun West Germany, then watch Europe close ranks [29:29] The Hand of God, and a goal that settled an old score 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.
#159
June 30 · 34 min
World Cup | The World Cup and the New World Order | 3
What turns a football team into a country's most powerful weapon? How does a game invented to entertain end up laundering the reputations of dictators? And when seventy years of European control collapsed in a single afternoon's vote — who took the game, and what did they want with it? From the sunlit genius of Brazil in 1970 to a backroom ballot in Frankfurt, Peter and Afua track the moment football slips out of European hands — and everyone, from newly free nations to military juntas, lunges to grab it. Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm [0:00] The greatest team ever to play — and the regime that basked in them [3:56] Apartheid South Africa digs in while the rest of the world breaks free [8:34] The Brazilian swimmer who saw what Europe refused to [13:30] Mexico 1970: sunshine, colour TV, and football reborn as carnival [15:30] England's captain, accused of nicking a bracelet in Bogotá [18:38] Pelé becomes the most famous man alive — for a government that tortures [22:17] Zaire arrive, the leopard-print rebellion begins [30:52] One vote in Frankfurt ends seventy years of European rule 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.
#158
June 25 · 41 min
World Cup | Post Colonial World | 2
What happens when the nations that invented football start losing their grip on it? How does a team representing a country that doesn't officially exist end up touring the world and unnerving an empire? And why did thirty-one African nations refuse to play at all? Afua and Peter follow football into the age of decolonisation — Algeria's phantom side, Nkrumah's Black Stars, a seventeen-year-old in tears in Stockholm — as the colonised stop asking permission and take the game for themselves. [0:00] 1950: the empires are gone, but nobody's told the World Cup [6:55] Bandung — half the planet decides to stop being spectators [9:27] Algeria's ghost team: the national side that didn't officially exist [12:46] Nkrumah, the Black Star, and building a nation out of nothing [17:48] South Korea lose 9–0 — and it still counts as a triumph [19:51] A teenager weeps on his teammates' shoulders and reorders the game [26:37] Thirty-one nations walk out of the World Cup at once [29:33] Eusébio: the man winning for the empire that denied his own 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.
#157
June 23 · 44 min
World Cup | Origins In Empire | 1
How did a game scribbled into rules by Victorian schoolboys end up watched by four billion people? Why do the countries that were colonised take such fierce joy in beating the ones that colonised them? And by the time Mussolini was watching from the stands, was the World Cup ever really just about football? Peter and Afua follow football out along the empire's trade routes — from a London rulebook in 1863 to the first World Cups, where conquest, nationhood and fascism were already stitched into the world's game. [0:00] Twenty-two players, a ball, ninety minutes — and something far older underneath [7:52] Afua on cheering full Ghana against the country that once ruled it [17:19] The game nobody owns: how 1863 and a single rulebook started everything [20:19] Two footballs, a rulebook, and the Scotsman's son who infected Brazil [22:06] The British invent the game — so why do the French end up running it? [25:22] One final, two nations, and a fight over whose ball to even use [27:42] Mussolini works out exactly what football is for [37:28] 1938: empires line up on the pitch, and almost none bring their colonies 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.
#156
June 18 · 36 min
1776 | America 250: What the Culture Says | 2
What does a country sing about when it can't agree on its own founding? Why has Hollywood, which will film literally anything, never made a great movie about 1776? And when both the Black Lives Matter marchers and the January 6th rioters claim to be the true heirs of the Declaration of Independence, who actually owns the revolution? From Hamilton's founding hustlers to Beyoncé's cowboys to a White House captioning a royal portrait "two kings," Peter and Afua track the Declaration through the culture that keeps remixing it — and a country that still can't agree on what it says. [0:00] Two riots, one document, and everyone insisting they're the real sons of liberty [3:10] How a hip-hop musical about a slaveholding revolution became the biggest thing on Broadway [7:49] The friend Afua had to physically stop from walking out of Hamilton [12:27] An empty thousand-seat cinema, and the one Melania line worth hearing [16:00] The first American cowboys came from West Africa — and Beyoncé knows it [19:14] Why Hollywood will green-light anything except 1776 [23:36] The protest movement that refuses to say Trump's name [32:13] The day the White House posted a photo and called it "two kings" 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.
#155
June 16 · 40 min
1776 | The Legacy For Our Culture | 1
Why did African Americans spend a century celebrating the Fifth of July instead of the Fourth? Why did a sitting US president personally try to end a journalist's career over one newspaper series? And two hundred and fifty years on, why can't America agree on what its founding document actually means? A 250-year-old promise of equality collides with slavery, revolution and a modern-day tenure battle as Afua and Peter close out their Declaration of Independence series. [1:28] Fifty-six men sign in Philadelphia — many of them slave owners writing "all men are created equal" [8:07] Lafayette's regret: "I would never have drawn my sword..." [11:42] Why a Virginia senator can't stomach Bolívar's revolution [15:20] Why Black Americans spent a century celebrating the Fifth of July instead [17:27] Frederick Douglass asks the question that still stings: "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" [18:53] The project that says America was really founded in 1619 [28:55] A sitting president personally tries to take the story down [30:54] She wins a Pulitzer. Her university refuses her tenure anyway. 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.
#154
June 11 · 36 min
1776 | The Women Washington Could Never Catch | 2
Who really built American freedom — and why does the answer make so many people so uncomfortable? What happens when an enslaved woman takes the Declaration of Independence more seriously than the man who wrote it? And, when the President of the United States turns the full machinery of government against one young Black woman — why can't he catch her? Belinda Sutton petitioned a court for fifty years of unpaid wages and won. Ona Judge walked out of the President's house while George Washington ate his dinner, and spent the rest of her life free. The founding story you were taught left both of them out entirely. [0:00] The founding myth and its glaring blind spot [3:00] Belinda Sutton — kidnapped at 12, enslaved for 50 years, and why she still fought back [7:50] The petition that became one of the earliest demands for reparations in American history [12:00] John Hancock signs off — and why the estate still refuses to pay [17:00] How Belinda's story spread and why Ta-Nehisi Coates and Harvard both came calling [19:30] Ona Judge — Washington's secret system for keeping his household enslaved in Pennsylvania [24:00] The night she walked out while the President ate dinner [27:30] Washington weaponises the federal government to hunt her down [31:00] She negotiates with the President — and he blinks first [34:00] "I am free" — Ona Judge's answer, fifty years later, says everything 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.
#153
June 9 · 34 min
1776 | The Founding Mothers | 1
The Declaration of Independence said all men are created equal. But what did that mean to the women who heard those words and knew they were being lied to? Who were the women the founding fathers never mentioned — and what did they do about it? And, if America was founded on the idea of freedom, why did it take another century — and a civil war — to even begin to make good on that promise? Afua and Peter turn the founding of America upside down, telling the story of 1776 through the women the Declaration forgot: a teenage poet who became the first Black woman in history to publish a book of poetry in English, and an enslaved woman who walked into a lawyer's office and used the Constitution to abolish slavery in Massachusetts. (0:00) The Declaration of Independence is about to turn 250 — but whose freedom was it really for? (1:43) Legacy Plus — bonus episodes, early access, and fewer ads 2:00 Why enslaved Americans didn't wait to be freed — they were already fighting (5:36) Lord Dunmore's proclamation and the moment thousands of Black men chose their side (7:48) Phillis Wheatley: kidnapped at seven, named after the slave ship that took her (9:59) From chalk letters on a wall to mastering Greek — the making of a prodigy (12:09) The court case where she had to prove she wrote her own poems (14:23) Sent to London as pro-slavery propaganda — and why it spectacularly backfired (16:12) Published in London, ignored in Boston: the first Black woman to publish poetry in English (17:23) The poem she sent to George Washington — and why he actually wrote back (18:47) They met in Cambridge in 1776: the Virginia enslaver and the young woman he couldn't ignore (20:04) How post-revolutionary America still wouldn't publish her — and how she built a subscription model 250 years before Substack (21:50) She reached Washington, Jefferson, Thomas Paine — and died at 30 in a boarding house (23:34) Elizabeth Freeman: the woman who heard the Declaration read aloud and walked straight to a lawyer (25:11) "Where's my freedom?" — the most direct question anyone asked of the founding fathers (27:05) The iron-shaped scar she refused to hide — and how she weaponised it (27:41) Bett v Ashley: the case that abolished slavery in Massachusetts (31:36 She wins not just her freedom but freedom for every enslaved person in the state — then changes her name to Elizabeth Freeman Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more. legacy.supportingcast.fm Instagram: @originallegacypodcast TikTok: @legacy_productions 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.
#152
June 4 · 36 min
Declaration of Independence | The Brand | 2
Who wrote "all men are created equal" — and then went home to more than 180 enslaved people? What does a document actually mean when it excludes women, Indigenous peoples, and one in five of the very population it claims to liberate? And, was the Declaration of Independence a genuine statement of universal human rights — or the most successful rebranding exercise in political history? Peter and Afua tear apart the Declaration of Independence: who wrote it, what it actually meant, what was left out on purpose, and why its contradictions still define America 250 years on. (0:00) "All men are created equal" — by men who didn't believe it (9:00) Britain vs the colonies: mistrust, miscalculation, and the slide into war (14:00) Lexington, Concord, and the shot heard around the world (19:00) Lord Dunmore's offer: freedom to the enslaved — and the colonists' outrage (24:00) Thomas Paine's Common Sense and the power of simple ideas (30:00) John Hancock signs big and invents a new word for "signature" (35:00) After independence: debt, fragility, and the problems victory didn't solve (42:00) How the revolution accidentally redirected the British Empire 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.
#151
June 2 · 40 min
Declaration of Independence | Follow The Money | 1
What if the Boston Tea Party had less to do with liberty and more to do with a smuggler protecting his profit margins? What if hurricanes tearing through the Caribbean helped light the fuse of revolution? And, what if the men who gave birth to America were not visionary idealists but wealthy merchants who had simply run out of patience with British trade restrictions? Peter and Afua pull back the curtain on the financial machinery behind American independence — the Caribbean slave economy, the smuggling networks, the Bengal famine, and the merchants who dressed their self-interest in the language of liberty. (0:00) It wasn't about democracy. It was about who controlled the money (2:00) Britain's debt doubles after the Seven Years' War — and someone has to pay for it (7:50) The colonists were richer, taller, and paid less tax than anyone in Britain (11:50) Tea, empire, and why the whole system was built on piracy (13:30) The Boston Tea Party: orderly political theatre and a £10,000 act of destruction (17:35) The Boston Massacre and the propaganda machine that turned it into a rallying cry (20:30) The Caribbean cash machine — and how hurricanes made colonial merchants very rich (27:20) John Hancock: celebrated patriot, and according to British customs officials, the head of a massive smuggling operation (30:00) The first Continental Congress: protecting constitutional rights — and profit margins (34:00) The Bengal famine, 10 million dead, and why it became a weapon against British imperialism (38:00) Neither side wanted war — and that's exactly how they stumbled into one 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.
#150
May 28 · 42 min
Founding Fathers | Saints and Sinners | 4
Was Alexander Hamilton the real architect of American capitalism — or just the most self-destructive genius in the room? What does it mean that the man who shaped the nation's finances spent his career surrounded by an economy built on enslaved labour he understood firsthand? And, if the founding fathers were so brilliant, why is America still fighting about what they actually built? Peter and Afua peel back the marble on two of the most mythologised men in history: Hamilton, the penniless Caribbean immigrant who survived a hurricane, built the American financial machine, and then blew up his own career with a 95-page confession; and Washington, the slave-owning Virginia planter who became the face of liberty — and knew exactly when to put the power down. 0:00 Hamilton, Washington, and the show that won't let the founders off the hook 1:48 The Caribbean origins of Alexander Hamilton — and what Nevis reveals about colonial violence 5:30 How working at the epicentre of the Atlantic slave economy shaped Hamilton's political thinking 9:10 The outsider who doubled down: Hamilton's ambition, his tongue, and why people feared him 11:36 The Reynolds affair — confessing adultery to defeat a corruption charge 15:50 What Hamilton brought to the revolution that none of the others could 20:10 George Washington: the Virginia planter who had to learn how to be a gentleman 24:00 How marrying Martha Custis transformed Washington's wealth and status overnight 26:40 The land grab Britain tried to block — and why it radicalized Washington 30:30 The fragile coalition: Franklin's joke, the hanging rope, and what really held them together 35:00 Washington's genius was knowing what not to do — and when to walk away 38:40 The American dream was built on free labour — and the dishonesty that disguised it 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.

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