Welcome to the final topic of Origin Story season seven: the extraordinary life and legacy of Dr Martin Luther King. By Origin Story standards, there’s an unusual moral clarity to this story — a genuinely good man up against genuine horrors — but that doesn’t make it a straightforward one. The mainstream caricature of King as a kindly, colour-blind saint is not just a simplification but a cynical misrepresentation, designed to drain his example of its power.

Born in Atlanta in 1929, the son of a prominent pastor, King was a brilliant student who developed a sophisticated worldview grounded in both Christianity and philosophy. His Gandhi-inspired belief in nonviolent resistance became central to the civil rights struggle when he was thrust onto the frontlines during the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-6 and quickly became the most admired black man in America. He was just 27.

King’s new role as leader and symbol of the movement was both an honour and a burden. Abused, threatened, assaulted and jailed, he wrestled with his own feelings of inadequacy and guilt as well as the violent forces of white racism and the obsessive attention of the FBI. We follow him through his great triumphs — Montgomery, Birmingham, the March on Washington, Selma — but also his setbacks, his mistakes and his complicated relationships with presidents and fellow activists.

What made this previously unknown preacher the unrivalled leader of the civil rights movement for more than 12 years? How did he develop, and evolve, his philosophy of nonviolence? Who were his loyal allies, vicious antagonists and complicated frenemies? How did he play to his strengths and transcend his weaknesses? And what gave him the strength to carry on in the face of both the American South’s barbaric racism and his own

ceaseless insecurities?

This is an inspiring and often surprising story of moral courage and strategic leadership pitted against terrible odds — one with vital lessons for anybody who seeks to change the world for the better.

Plus! Another Origin Story playlist, featuring songs about and inspired by Martin Luther King. It’s sequenced to tell his story chronologically.

Reading list

• Ralph Abernathy, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography (1989)

• Jonathan Eig, King: The Life of Martin Luther King (2023)

• Marshall Frady, Martin Luther King, Jr: A Life (2001)

• Martin Luther King Jr, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story (1958)

• Martin Luther King Jr, Why We Can’t Wait (1963)

• Martin Luther King Jr, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? (1967)

• Dr Martin Luther King Jr, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches, edited by James Melvin Washington (1986)

• Stephen B. Oates, Let the Trumpet Sound: A Life of Martin Luther King, Jr (1982)

• Jason Sokol, The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr (2018)

Articles

• Renata Adler, ‘The Selma March’, The New Yorker (1965)

• Jelani Cobb, ‘Martin Luther King, Jr.’s History Lessons’, The New Yorker (2022)

• Alex Haley (uncredited), Playboy interview: Martin Luther King (1965)

• Howell Raines, ‘Driven to Martyrdom’, New York Times (1986)

• Kelefa Sanneh, ‘Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Perilous Power of Respectability’, The New Yorker (2023)

• Time, ‘THE SOUTH: Attack on the Conscience’, Time (1957)

• Time, ‘America’s Gandhi: Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’, Time (1964)

• Calvin Trillin, ‘The Struggle for Civil Rights in Mississippi’, The New Yorker (1964)

Video

• 60 Minutes interview with Martin Luther King (1966)

• BBC Face to Face interview with Martin Luther King (1961)

• Martin Luther King, ‘I Have a Dream’ speech (1963)

... Full reading list continues on Patreon

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Welcome back to Origin Story, where we’re discussing the concept of economic growth. Growth is the world’s great obsession. When it’s booming, it makes everything easier. When it stagnates or goes into reverse, everybody panics. But what exactly is it, what drives it and what does it cost us?

For most of human history economic growth didn’t exist. The average person was no better off than their distant ancestors. Even when the age of growth began with the Industrial Revolution, nobody knew how to measure it or control it until the 1940s. Enter GDP, which quickly became the most important number in the world despite its creators acknowledging from the start that it was both artificial and deeply flawed.

We talk about what GDP does and does not measure and how it has adapted to an increasingly complicated global economy. We meet the economists who created it (hello again, John Maynard Keynes) and those who tried to reform or replace it. Robert F Kennedy claimed in 1968 that GDP “measures everything except that which makes life worthwhile”. Is the number that rules the world really fit for purpose?

Then we explore our addiction to relentless growth and ask if there is a more sustainable way to thrive: green growth, slow growth or degrowth? Preserving our natural resources without risking economic and political disaster is the great challenge of our times.

Is growth essential to the survival of democracy or the cause of many of its problems? What fuelled the miraculous growth of previous eras and why isn’t it working anymore? Can advanced economies escape the low-growth trap or do we need to rethink our whole approach to growth and prosperity? Does GDP still tell us what we need to know? And are we valuing the right things?

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

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Reading list

• Donella H. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth (1972)

• Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man & Technology (1971)

• Diane Coyle, GDP: A Brief but Affectionate History (2014)

• Diane Coyle, The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters (2025)

• Ehsan Masood, GDP: The World’s Most Powerful Formula and Why It Must Now Change (2021)

• Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2020)

• John Maynard Keynes, How to Pay for the War (1940)

• Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist (2017)

• Daniel Susskind, Growth: A Reckoning (2024)

Articles

• John Cassidy, ‘Can We Have Prosperity Without Growth’, The New Yorker (2020)

• Herman Daly, ‘The Canary Has Fallen Silent’, New York Times (1970)

• Editorial, ‘Pandemic Calls for a New Approach to Growth’, Financial Times (2020)

• Editorial, ‘Are there limits to economic growth? It’s time to call time on a 50 year argument’, Nature (2022)

• Idrees Kahloon, ‘The World Keeps Getting Richer. Some People Are Worried’, The New Yorker (2024)

• Carolyn Kormann, ‘The False Choice Between Economic Growth and Combatting Climate Change’, The New Yorker (2019)

• Katy Lederer, ‘The End of G.D.P.?’, The New Yorker (2015)

• David Marchese, This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession with Growth Must End, New York Times (2022)

• Bill McKibben, ‘To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower?’, The New Yorker (2023)

• John Merrick, ‘The prophet of the new right’, The New Statesman (2025)

• Peter Passell, Marc Roberts and Leonard Ross, ‘The Limits to Growth’, New York Times (1972)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Welcome to the first ever episode of Origin Story dedicated to a planet. We’re taking a long look at the place of Mars in the popular imagination, from ancient civilisations to fin de siècle Mars mania to the current techbro obsession with exploration and colonisation. Is there life on Mars? Let’s find out.

The ancients associated the red planet with gods of war. With the invention of the telescope in the 17th century, astronomers began to understand Mars better and speculate about its inhabitants. Thanks to the amateur astronomer Percival Lowell, the romance of the red planet, and its alleged “canals”, became a craze in the 1890s. H.G. Wells and Edgar Rice Burroughs imagined the Martians as colonisers and colonised respectively, while luminaries like Nikola Tesla and Francis Galton hatched outlandish schemes to contact them.

Science played the killjoy. Even as a new wave of Mars mania swept the post-war world, NASA probes unveiled the reality of a cold, dusty, dead planet. But their findings allowed for a new breed of romance: the possibility of actually reaching and settling on Mars. 

Ray Bradbury compared Mars to a mirror. What does humanity’s fascination with it say about our own dreams and fears over the centuries? How did the fictional Martian turn from a friendly pacifist into a ruthless killing machine? Why is there such a thin line between fact and fiction? Is Elon Musk’s obsession with settlement really possible or just another delusion? And why exactly do so many people want to travel to a planet that makes the least hospitable places on earth look like Center Parcs?

It’s a mindboggling tale of scientific discovery and wild fantasy, with an all-star cast including Lord Tennyson, William Herschel, Thomas Edison, David Bowie and Arthur C. Clarke. Plus! Our first ever Origin Story playlist, with 23 songs about Mars. We have lift-off.

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

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Reading list

• Ray Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles (1950)

• Albert Burneko, ‘Neither Elon Musk nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars’ (2025)

• Stuart Clark (ed.), The Book of Mars: An Anthology of Fact and Fiction (2022)

• Robert Crossley, Imagining Mars: A Literary History (2011)

• Marc Hartzman, The Big Book of Mars (2020)

• Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

• Walter Isaacson, Elon Musk (2023)

• Nicky Jenner, 4 th Rock from the Sun: The Story of Mars (2017)

• Dorian Lynskey, Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World (2024)

• Lord Tennyson, ‘Locksley Hall Sixty Years After’ (1886)

• Walter Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1963)

• Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? (2023)

• H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds (1898)

• Robert Zubrin, The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must (1996)

Audio and video

• Alternative 3, written by David Ambrose and directed by Christopher Miles (1977)

• The Bunker: Why Elon Musk’s plan for life on Mars is a terrible idea (2025)

• The Martian, written by Drew Goddard and directed by Ridley Scott (2015)

• A Trip to Mars, directed by Ashley Miller for the Edison Company (1910)

• The War of the Worlds, written and directed by Orson Welles (1938)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Welcome back to Origin Story and join us as we wrap up the story of appeasement. It’s 1938. After the Anschluss, Hitler makes his bid for the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia and tests the moral and strategic arguments for appeasement to breaking point. While Chamberlain insists it would be madness to go to war over “a quarrel in a faraway country, between people of whom we know nothing,” opponents like Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee are equally convinced that selling out the Czechs will only encourage Hitler to go further.

Desperate diplomacy culminates in the Munich Agreement but Chamberlain’s “triumph” is short-lived as opposition mounts across the country. The German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 destroys appeasement as a mainstream proposition, leaving only an uneasy alliance of fascists and pacifists. When Stalin chooses Germany over Britain and France, war is inevitable.

We look at the people who still wanted to make a deal with Hitler even once the war had begun, the fall of Chamberlain and the revenge of Churchill. We debunk the revisionist case for appeasement, explore how the legacy of Munich has been used and abused to justify military intervention ever since, and ask whether history is repeating itself over Putin and Ukraine.

Why did Munich’s popularity collapse so quickly? How did Chamberlain misread Hitler’s intentions so badly? What motivated the die-hard appeasers, and the historians who defend the policy even now? Are the lessons of appeasement a double-edged sword? And which of Chamberlain’s foes had the best zingers?

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory 

Reading list

• Anonymous, ‘A New Dawn’, The Times (1 October 1938)

• W.H. Auden, ‘September 1, 1939’ (1939)

• Frederick T. Birchall, ‘Olympics Leave Glow of Pride in the Reich’, New York Times (16 August 1936)

• Tim Bouverie, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to

War (2019)

• Cato (Michael Foot, Peter Howard and Frank Owen), Guilty Men (1940)

• Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey, Fascism: The Story of an Idea (2024)

• Martin Gilbert, The Roots of Appeasement (1966)

• Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9 (1980)

• Cicely Hamilton, Theodore Savage: A Story of the Past or the Future (1922)

• Lucy Hughes-Hallett, ‘How the appeasement of Hitler played into his hands’, New Statesman (2019)

• Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1989)

• Ian Kershaw, Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain’s Road to War (2004)• James Levy, Appeasement and Rearmament: Britain 1936-1939 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)

• Frank McDonough, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War (1998)

• Malcolm Muggeridge, The Thirties: 1930-1940 in Great Britain (1940)

• George Orwell, Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937-1939, edited by Peter Davison (1998)

• ‘Policy of His Majesty’s Government’, day three of House of Commons debate on Munich, Hansard (5 October 1938)

• Martin Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (2005)

• Stephen H. Roberts, The House That Hitler Built (1937)

• Viscount Rothermere, Warnings and Predictions (1939)

• A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (1961)

• Things to Come, written by H.G. Wells and directed by William Cameron Menzies (1936)

• Neville Thompson, The Anti-Appeasers (1971)

• Lord Vansittart, The Mist Procession (1958)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Welcome back to Origin Story. This week we turn to the story of the appeasement of Hitler’s Germany during the 1930s. With appeasement in the news again in relation to Ukraine, understanding the mistakes of 90 years ago is urgently necessary. How did noble impulses like optimism, fairness and the desire for peace lead to history’s most infamous foreign policy disaster?

During the 15 years following the First World War, horror of conflict and a growing consensus that the Treaty of Versailles had immiserated Germany made appeasement a positive effort to ensure peace in Europe. Even Winston Churchill was on board. But the arrival of Hitler put paid to that. The question now became: how could a militarily weak Britain rein in an unpredictable dictator, not to mention Italy and Japan? And what did Hitler really want?

We move from the desperate fudging of Ramsay MacDonald and Stanley Baldwin to the evangelical appeasement of Neville Chamberlain, and from crisis to crisis: Manchuria, Abyssinia, the Rhineland, the Anschluss. We meet the most fervent appeasers and their most furious opponents. As Chamberlain’s government begins to crack, Hitler sets his sights on Czechoslovakia…

How did appeasement transform from a benign peace-making strategy into a moral and diplomatic disaster? Why is Chamberlain’s reputation as a weak, indecisive leader so misleading? How did Hitler manage to fool so many powerful people? When could Britain and France have stopped him in his tracks? And what combination of good intentions, bad judgements and apocalyptic delusions led to catastrophe?

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory 

Reading list

• Anonymous, ‘A New Dawn’, The Times (1 October 1938)

• W.H. Auden, ‘September 1, 1939’ (1939)

• Frederick T. Birchall, ‘Olympics Leave Glow of Pride in the Reich’, New York Times (16 August 1936)

• Tim Bouverie, Appeasing Hitler: Chamberlain, Churchill and the Road to

War (2019)

• Cato (Michael Foot, Peter Howard and Frank Owen), Guilty Men (1940)

• Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey, Fascism: The Story of an Idea (2024)

• Martin Gilbert, The Roots of Appeasement (1966)

• Richard Griffiths, Fellow Travellers of the Right: British Enthusiasts for Nazi Germany, 1933-9 (1980)

• Cicely Hamilton, Theodore Savage: A Story of the Past or the Future (1922)

• Lucy Hughes-Hallett, ‘How the appeasement of Hitler played into his hands’, New Statesman (2019)

• Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day (1989)

• Ian Kershaw, Making Friends with Hitler: Lord Londonderry and Britain’s Road to War (2004)• James Levy, Appeasement and Rearmament: Britain 1936-1939 (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)

• Frank McDonough, Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War (1998)

• Malcolm Muggeridge, The Thirties: 1930-1940 in Great Britain (1940)

• George Orwell, Facing Unpleasant Facts: 1937-1939, edited by Peter Davison (1998)

• ‘Policy of His Majesty’s Government’, day three of House of Commons debate on Munich, Hansard (5 October 1938)

• Martin Pugh, ‘Hurrah for the Blackshirts!’: Fascists and Fascism in Britain Between the Wars (2005)

• Stephen H. Roberts, The House That Hitler Built (1937)

• Viscount Rothermere, Warnings and Predictions (1939)

• A.J.P. Taylor, The Origins of the Second World War (1961)

• Things to Come, written by H.G. Wells and directed by William Cameron Menzies (1936)

• Neville Thompson, The Anti-Appeasers (1971)

• Lord Vansittart, The Mist Procession (1958)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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We had a very good time at Origin Story Live at 21 Soho on Wednesday night. Thanks to everyone who showed up or watched the livestream.

The theme of the show is the American inferno and how to think about it. In part one, Normalisation, we use British responses to Hitler in the 1930s to explain how normality bias prevents much of the media from facing up to the crazed extremism of Donald Trump and rip into some of the spectacularly wrong predictions of the pundit class.

In part two, Complicity, we take on the politicians, commentators and voters who actively enable Trump and ask what the residents of one German town can tell us about MAGA’s fascist groupthink. But it’s not all bad news. We explore how Trumpism might fail and how Europe might emerge stronger.

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Welcome back to Origin Story, where we’re concluding the story of the partition of India and Pakistan. We resume in March 1947 with the arrival of the last viceroy of the Raj, Lord Mountbatten, and his formidable wife Edwina. They find a country on the precipice of civil war, with the Punjab consumed by ethnic violence between Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs. Nehru, Jinnah, Gandhi and the British haggle over the details of partition as the deadline draws near and tensions rise. After independence is declared on 15 August, the leaders struggle to bring peace to the new nations of India and Pakistan and avert all-out war over Kashmir.

When did partition become truly inevitable? Was British incompetence to blame for the bloodshed? What, or who, brought an end to the violence? How does the legacy of partition continue to shape the subcontinent’s politics? And what can we learn about the dangers of identity-based politics today?

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory 

Reading list

• John Bew, Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee (2016)

• William Dalrymple, ‘The Great Divide’, The New Yorker (2015)

• Patrick French, ‘The Brutal “Great Migration” That Followed India’s Independence and Partition’, Life.com (2016)

• Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume One: 1889-1947 (1975)

• Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume Two: 1947-1965 (1979)

• Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World 1915-1948 (2018)

• Gandhi, written by John Briley and directed by Richard Attenborough (1982)

• Nisid Hajari, Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition (2015)

• Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (1985)

• George Orwell, ‘Reflections on Gandhi’, Partisan Review (1949)

• Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981)

• Alex von Tunzelmann, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007)

Audio

• Empire: Mahatma Gandhi (2022)

• Empire: Muhammad Ali Jinnah (2022)

• Empire: The Last Viceroy of India (2022)

• Empire: Partition (2022)

• Jawaharlal Nehru, Independence Day speech (1947)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Welcome back to Origin Story. This week we begin the immense story of the partition of India and Pakistan at midnight on 14-15 August 1947. In a stroke, 340 million people gained independence from the British Empire but a day of celebration came in the midst of horrific ethnic violence which left between 1 and 2 million people dead and more than 15 million displaced in the largest ever movement of people. Historians have argued ever since about whether this traumatic bloodshed, and partition itself, could have been avoided if different politicians had made different decisions.

We start by introducing the key players in India, all of them British-educated lawyers: Mahatma Gandhi, the spiritual leader who became an international icon through his use of nonviolent protest to demand independence; Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the Muslim leader who rebounded from numerous defeats to become the father of Pakistan; and Jawaharlal Nehru, who wanted nothing more than to hold India together as a secular, multicultural state.

On the British side, Clement Attlee was determined to bring the Raj to a peaceful conclusion, Winston Churchill was equally obsessed with preserving it, and viceroys Lord Linlithgow and Archibald Wavell took very different approaches to Indian nationalism.

The story takes us from late Victorian London to the Amritsar massacre, and from Gandhi’s triumphant Salt March to the disaster of the Quit India campaign during the Second World War. We see Pakistan go from a utopian fantasy to a plausible reality while believers in a united India do everything they can to prevent it. And as negotiations falter, riots and pogroms begin to inflame the country. We end on the cusp of 1947 as Lord Mountbatten becomes the last viceroy and partition looks almost inevitable.

To what extent did the personalities of a handful of politicians in India and Britain dictate the course of world history? How did Jinnah bring Pakistan to life? Does Gandhi deserve his saintly reputation? And why don't we like to talk about it?

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory 

Reading list

• John Bew, Citizen Clem: A Biography of Attlee (2016)

• William Dalrymple, ‘The Great Divide’, The New Yorker (2015)

• Patrick French, ‘The Brutal “Great Migration” That Followed India’s Independence and Partition’, Life.com (2016)

• Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume One: 1889-1947 (1975)

• Sarvepalli Gopal, Jawaharlal Nehru: A Biography: Volume Two: 1947-1965 (1979)

• Ramachandra Guha, Gandhi: The Years That Changed the World 1915-1948 (2018)

• Gandhi, written by John Briley and directed by Richard Attenborough (1982)

• Nisid Hajari, Midnight’s Furies: The Deadly Legacy of India’s Partition (2015)

• Ayesha Jalal, The Sole Spokesman: Jinnah, the Muslim League and the Demand for Pakistan (1985)

• George Orwell, ‘Reflections on Gandhi’, Partisan Review (1949)

• Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children (1981)

• Alex von Tunzelmann, Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007)

Audio

• Empire: Mahatma Gandhi (2022)

• Empire: Muhammad Ali Jinnah (2022)

• Empire: The Last Viceroy of India (2022)

• Empire: Partition (2022)

• Jawaharlal Nehru, Independence Day speech (1947)

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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In part two of Thatcherism, Margaret Thatcher has survived a grim first term and her political and economic bets have paid off. She’s ready to wage war on everything she considers socialism: trade unions, local councils, nationalised industries, the BBC, you name it. The Britain she leads is wealthier and more dynamic yet more divided and unequal — a land bisected into winners and losers, where her beloved free-market economics rips through the families and communities she claims to value.

Success has turned Thatcher into a harsh, unbending autocrat, hated by half the country and increasingly alienated from her own ministers. Her stubborn belief in her own instincts leads to catastrophic hubris over Europe and the poll tax, turning allies into assassins. On 22 November 1990, she is forced to resign as prime minister. We wrap up by discussing Thatcher’s record and legacy, both of which are far messier than her acolytes claim.

Where did Thatcher succeed and fail in fundamentally changing Britain? Why did her strengths become fatal flaws? How did she sow the seeds of Brexit and Tory civil war? And what were Thatcherism’s unacknowledged contradictions? Is it just another world for neoliberalism or a far more eccentric bundle of beliefs, prejudices and mannerisms? Are her disciples in today’s Tory Party learning all the wrong lessons? Join us as we explode some myths and tell the real story of Thatcherism.

• Support Origin Story on Patreon

• Get the Origin Story books on Fascism, Centrism and Conspiracy Theory 

Reading list

• Andy Beckett, Pinochet in Piccadilly: Britain and Chile’s Hidden History (2002)

• Andy Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2009)

• Andy Beckett, Promised You a Miracle: Why 1980-82 Made Modern Britain (2015)

• Brian and Maggie, written by James Graham and directed by Stephen Frears (2025)

• Ronald Butt, Interview with Margaret Thatcher, Sunday Times (1981)

• Conservative Central Office, ‘The Right Approach’ (1976)

• Iain Dale (ed.), Memories of Margaret Thatcher (2013)

• Patrick Dunleavy, ‘The lasting achievement of Thatcherism as a political project is that Britain now has three political parties of the right, instead of one’, LSE (2013)

• Ian Gilmour, Dancing with Dogma: Britain Under Thatcherism (1992)

• Ipsos polling on the Falklands War, Ipsos (1982)

• John Harris, ‘Spare a thought for the late unlamented one nation Tory’, The Guardian (2013)

• John Hoskyns and Norman Strauss, ‘Stepping Stones’ (1977)

• Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech (1990)

• Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (1994)

• The Iron Lady, written by Abi Morgan and directed by Phyllida Lloyd (2011)

• Sir Keith Joseph, ‘Notes Towards the Definition of Policy’, Conservative Research Department (1975)

• Kwasi Kwarteng et al, Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Posterity (2012)

• Kenneth Minogue and Michael Biddiss (eds.), Thatcherism: Personality and Politics (1987)

• Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography: Volume One (2013)

• Mollie Panter-Downes, ‘Letter from London’, New Yorker (1982)

• Robert Saunders, Yes! To Europe: The 1975 Referendum and Seventies Britain (2018)

• Margaret Thatcher, ‘Speech to Conservative Party Conference’ (1975)

• Margaret Thatcher, ‘Speech to Conservative Rally in Bolton’ (1979)

• Margaret Thatcher, The Downing Street Years (1993)

• Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power (1995)

• Phil Tinline, The Death of Consensus: 100 Years of Political Nightmares (2022)

• D.R. Valentine, ‘Margaret Thatcher on History, Economics & Political Consensus’, University of Oxford (2013)

• Brian Walden, Interview with Margaret Thatcher after Nigel Lawson’s resignation (1989)

... reading list continues on Patreon

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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Hello and welcome to season seven of Origin Story, where Ian Dunt and Dorian Lynskey continue to explore the misunderstood ideas and people that shape our politics today. We hope you’ve enjoyed all the bonus episodes. We’re starting with a topic that’s been on our shortlist since the very beginning, and it’s a big one: Thatcherism. By that we mean Margaret Thatcher herself, born 100 years ago, and the evolution of the rather nebulous idea that bears her name. Is it a coherent ideology or the expression of a very unusual personality?

In part one we follow Thatcher from her birth in Grantham in 1925 to her triumph in the Falklands War 57 years later. We investigate the influence of her father, the Methodist grocer and local celebrity Arthur Roberts; her entry into the reformist wing of the Conservative Party at Oxford University; and her journey to becoming MP for Finchley in 1959. It’s only in the 1970s that Thatcherism really takes shape. Scarred by her vilification as the “Milk Snatcher”, and repelled by Ted Heath and the post-war consensus, she follows the likes of Enoch Powell and Keith Joseph to the right, finding intellectual ideas to match her instinctive

beliefs.

The Thatcher who becomes Tory leader in 1975 and prime minister in 1979 is more “Cautious Margaret” than “Iron Lady”, not yet allergic to advice and compromise. She even has nice things to say about Europe. But before long, she’s the most unpopular prime minister since polling began. As her radical monetarist experiment leads to recession, mass unemployment and civil unrest, she appears doomed but once she’s defeated both the Tory “wets” and Argentina’s General Galtieri, Thatcherism is unchained.

What were Thatcher’s formative influences? How did she grow to hate consensus politics and see herself as the antidote? Who were the other architects of Thatcherism? How close did she come to disaster and was it really the Falklands that saved her? And can Keir Starmer learn anything from her chaotic and unpopular first term?

Next week the story continues with the 1983 election, the miners’ strike and the Thatcherite revolution, before it all goes horribly wrong for Maggie. If you’re a Patreon, you don’t have to wait: you can hear it right now.

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Reading list

• Andy Beckett, Pinochet in Piccadilly: Britain and Chile’s Hidden History (2002)

• Andy Beckett, When the Lights Went Out: Britain in the Seventies (2009)

• Andy Beckett, Promised You a Miracle: Why 1980-82 Made Modern Britain (2015)

• Brian and Maggie, written by James Graham and directed by Stephen Frears (2025)

• Ronald Butt, Interview with Margaret Thatcher, Sunday Times (1981)

• Conservative Central Office, ‘The Right Approach’ (1976)

• Iain Dale (ed.), Memories of Margaret Thatcher (2013)

• Patrick Dunleavy, ‘The lasting achievement of Thatcherism as a political project is that Britain now has three political parties of the right, instead of one’, LSE (2013)

• Ian Gilmour, Dancing with Dogma: Britain Under Thatcherism (1992)

• Ipsos polling on the Falklands War, Ipsos (1982)

• John Harris, ‘Spare a thought for the late unlamented one nation Tory’, The Guardian (2013)

• John Hoskyns and Norman Strauss, ‘Stepping Stones’ (1977)

• Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech (1990)

• Geoffrey Howe, Conflict of Loyalty (1994)

• The Iron Lady, written by Abi Morgan and directed by Phyllida Lloyd (2011)

• Sir Keith Joseph, ‘Notes Towards the Definition of Policy’, Conservative Research Department (1975)

• Kwasi Kwarteng et al, Britannia Unchained: Global Lessons for Growth and Posterity (2012)

... reading list continues on Patreon

Written and presented by Dorian Lynskey and Ian Dunt. Produced by Simon Williams. Music by Jade Bailey. Art by Jim Parrett. Logo by Mischa Welsh. Group Editor: Andrew Harrison. Origin Story is a Podmasters production

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