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?

*Support the show by copping the If I Speak Baggu bag – it's ethically made, comes in two colours and is available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Ash and Moya talk to Sophie Gilbert about the pornification of the '90s and '00s – an era when riot grrl gave way to girl power, the supermodel was replaced by the waif, and feminist solidarity battled against tabloid body-shaming and Terry Richardson. Sophie's new book is Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves.

Send us your dilemmas: [email protected]

Music by Matt Huxley.

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.

*Support the show by copping the If I Speak Baggu bag – it's ethically made, comes in two colours and is available from shop.novaramedia.com*

Moya and Ash tackle a topic that turns up in the If I Speak mailbox every week: how do you flirt?! Can you get better at making IRL connections – and coping with rejection? Plus, how to process a failed friendship. Warning: Contains musical theatre.

Send us your dilemmas: [email protected]

Music by Matt Huxley.

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.

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Ash has noticed that neither she nor Moya is white and urgently needs to talk about it. Has her sense of her racial identity changed over time? And where does it come from – their shade, their community, or the way they’re treated? Plus: which ethnicity is best at rice?!

Send us your dilemmas: [email protected]

Music by Matt Huxley.

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

Sign up to the ACFM newsletter: https://novaramedia.com/newsletters

Follow our ever-expanding playlist on Spotify by searching 'ACFM'.

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

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Having rekindled her appetite for fun, Ash now has a five-point plan to improve dancefloors. Plus, advice for a special one whose boyfriend isn’t weird or jealous – and that’s the problem.

Send us your dilemmas: [email protected]

Music by Matt Huxley.