Novara Media

Dan Wang is a technology analyst and author whose life experience, spent partly in North America, partly in China, sets him up as an authoritative observer of the differences and similarities between the American and Chinese empires. In conversation with Aaron Bastani, Wang shares his thesis that elite overproduction of engineers in China, and lawyers in America, can explain the traits of each empire as they face down the 21st century, from high speed rail and housing, to lockdown policy and manufacturing strategy.

Why has China been able to roll out high speed rail while America hasn’t? Why does so much of the anglophone world appear to be living in the ruins of industrial society? How did the one child policy come into being and has there been any reparation for the atrocities committed in its name? And is China today fundamentally left or right wing?

Owen Jones is a journalist and the author of ‘Chavs’, ‘The Establishment’, and ‘This Land’. He has spent the last 21 months relentlessly reporting and commenting on Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

He joins Ash Sarkar to talk about how media bias actually works, the history of the West’s support for Zionism, and how to deal with the weaponisation of antisemitism when it’s done to support a genocide.

Ash Sarkar sat down at EartH Hackney with acclaimed historian and author William Dalrymple.

Picking up where they left off last time they spoke on Downstream, Sarkar and Dalrymple had a wide-ranging conversation at the crossroads of empire, resistance, and the long shadows of colonialism.

From the rich histories traced in The Golden Road to the urgent realities of Gaza and the deeper fault lines of South Asia’s past, this was a discussion that cut across centuries—and continents.

Dalrymple brought his signature insight into how East shaped West, asking us to reimagine our sense of where power lay in the ancient world.

Novara FM was Novara Media’s first show – it’s now coming to an end.

On the final episode, Richard Hames sat down with Aaron Bastani, James Butler and Ash Sarkar to talk about 15 years of Novara Media.

What have we learned from a decade and a half fighting a media landscape that insists nothing can ever change?

A new product will launch next month. Animated by the same complexity and depth as Novara FM, it will be available both on this podcast feed and YouTube.

Dr Eliza Filby is a historian and author of the bestselling book Inheritocracy: It’s Time to Talk About the Bank of Mum and Dad. In conversation with Ash Sarkar, Dr Filby draws on her own life story, growing up in South London with parents who went from communists to Thatcherites in the 1980s. She debunks the common myths we tell ourselves about class and meritocracy, and in doing so, shines a light on the root cause of so much inequality: inherited wealth.

Is it really true that the Baby Boomers stole the next generation’s future? Why do housing deposits fall out of the sky for some people when they turn 30? Is it a good thing that the middle classes are now being screwed over, too? And is class ultimately about identity, or access to money?

Keir Starmer claims that growth is the only cure for a country in decline. But why is it the central obsession of modern capitalist economies? And can we think our way out of it before our planet runs out of resources?

Nadia, Keir and Jem offer their weird-left take on growth, degrowth, radical abundance, ecomodernism and personal productivity, with ideas from Kate Soper and Kohei Saito and music from Minnie Riperton, 7 Samurai and Joanna Newsom.

Find the books and music mentioned in the show: https://novara.media/acfm

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Zarah Sultana speaks to Novara Media exclusively about why she resigned from the Labour Party, what the plan is with her new political party founded with Jeremy Corbyn and how the left can defeat Nigel Farage.

This interview would once have been illegal to broadcast in the UK. For many, Gerry Adams is a peacemaker, but for others he remains inseparable from the violence and trauma of the Troubles.

Ash Sarkar travels to the James Connolly Centre in West Belfast to talk to Adams about the slow rise of his party, Sinn Féin, the emotional demands of leading a political movement, and his responsibility to the victims of IRA violence.

Help us build people-powered media: https://novara.media/support

Is the UK still a liberal country? With terrorism laws criminalising speech around Palestine Action, it’s a serious question.

A growing gulf between public opinion and state policy on Gaza reveals a liberal order in decline.

Richard Hames spoke to Simon Childs about where our society is going.

The Silk Road has dominated the way we imagine the trading relationship between Europe and Asia to have worked in antiquity.

In his new book, The Golden Road, William Dalrymple busts that myth. He sat down with Ash to talk about the origins of algebra, Indian gems in Anglo-Saxon Britain and why Genghis Khan was scared of India.

You can see Ash and William live in conversation at EartH Hackney on the 29th July:  https://dice.fm/event/92dq5d-downstream-irl-ash-sarkar-in-conversation-with-william-dalrymple-29th-jul-earth-london-tickets?lng=en