In this episode, we hear from Sally Hayden, the author of My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the World’s Deadliest Migration Route, published by Penguin in March 2022.

The book portrays the horrors of Libyan detention centers and the complicity of European powers who knowingly send people to places where they will face horrendous abuse. Furthermore, it’s a rare piece of investigative journalism that captures the lives of human beings suffering under extreme circumstances, together with a moral outlook matched by the power of its reporting.

Sally is a journalist covering migration, conflict, and humanitarian crises. Sally has written for several publications, including Vice, the Guardian, the Irish Times, Al Jazeera, and Foreign Policy.

This episode includes an audio recording sent to Sally by a man in a detention center in Tripoli.

This week we hear from Caroline Elkins, a Pulitzer-prize-winning historian, and Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University.

Caroline is the author of a new book, Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, published by Penguin in March 2022.

The book demonstrates how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting Britain’s empire and the nation’s imperial identity at home. The book upends long-held myths and sheds new light on the empire’s role in shaping the world today.

This week we hear from Asef Bayat, Professor of Sociology, and the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies at the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

He’s a renowned scholar whose work on the contemporary Middle East has had an enormous impact on how revolutions and social movements are understood. In this episode, he talks about his new book, Revolutionary Life: The Everyday of the Arab Spring, published by Harvard University Press in 2021.

In the book, Asef looks at how the working class, women, and other marginalized groups were vital to the Arab Uprisings. Focusing on Tunisia and Egypt, he shows how the uprisings changed society for millions of people in the region.

In this episode, we hear from Suhaiymah Manzoor-Khan, a writer, poet, and educator. She’s well known for her spoken word poetry which often focuses on the experience of being a Muslim in contemporary Britain.

Suhaiymah is the author of a poetry collection, Postcolonial Banter, and a new book, Tangled in Terror: Uprooting Islamophobia, which was published by Pluto in March.

Tangled in Terror looks at how Islamaphobia affects British Muslims. It argues that a system of surveillance and criminalization benefits the rich whilst dividing communities across the country.

In this episode, we focus on a very slippery material: palm oil. It can be found in a huge amount of food, health products, medicine, clothing, and technology.

Despite its ubiquity, the history and centrality of palm oil in globalized capitalism have tended to be overlooked.

In this episode, we speak to Max Haiven, Canada Research Chair in Culture, Media and Social Justice at Lakehead University. Max is the author of a new book, Palm Oil: The Grease of Empire, which will be published in April by Pluto Press.

In this episode, we discuss the history of Russian and Ukrainian relations, and how that history has been abused by Vladimir Putin to justify the invasion of Ukraine.

We also discuss how the modern Ukrainian state has been constructed through its literature, notably literature that celebrates a diversity of languages and cultures.

Shortly after the invasion began, Nicholas Pritchard spoke to Rory Finnin, Associate Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge, and Uilleam Blacker, Associate Professor in the Comparative Culture of Russia and Eastern Europe at University College London.

In this episode, we hear from Leïla Vignal, professor of geography at the École normale supérieure (ENS) in Paris, and author of War-Torn: The Unmaking of Syria, 2011 - 2021, published by Hurst in 2021.

In the book, Leïla focuses on the destruction of cities, social ties, and the economy in Syria during the decade when Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was at war with his own country.

Nicholas Pritchard met Leïla in her office at the ENS to discuss the book, the role of Russia in the destruction of Syria, and the weaponization of displacement.

In this episode, we hear from Diana Darke, author and broadcaster on culture in the Middle East. She has written a number of books on Syria and you can find her articles in the Guardian, the Financial Times, and many other places.

We discuss her most recent book, Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe, published by Hurst in 2020. In the book, Darke argues that the influence of Islamic architecture on European architecture has been greatly overlooked.

Writing against Islamophobia and Western supremacy, Darke argues that it’s time Europe acknowledged how Islamic culture led to some of Europe’s most iconic buildings, including the Houses of Parliament in London and Notre Dame in Paris.

This week, we hear from Liam Campling and Alejandro Colás, authors of Capitalism and the Sea: The Maritime Factor in the Making of the Modern World, published by Verso in 2021.

The book explores the geopolitics, ecology, and political economy of the world’s seas and oceans. They argue that the various ways in which the oceans have been used by capitalist societies led to the exploitation of humans, animals, and resources.

In this episode, we speak to Peter Mitchell who has just written a fascinating new book, Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves, published by Manchester University Press.

Peter argues that the British are haunted by their imperial past, unable to imagine themselves or their place in the world without it. This nostalgia shapes mainstream political debate on issues such as war, migration, culture, and history.