World Affairs

In 1923, German democracy faced crisis and near destruction. In this remarkable year in modern European history, France and Belgium militarily occupied Germany’s economic heartland, the Ruhr, triggering a series of crises that almost spiralled out of control. Drawing on previously unseen sources, in 1923 Mark Jones weaves together a thrilling and resonant narrative of German lives in this turbulent time. Tracing Hitler’s rise, he shows how political pragmatism and international cooperation eventually steered the nation away from total insurrection, and illustrates how the warnings of 1923 – a rise of nationalist rhetoric, fragile European consensus, and underestimation of the enemies of liberalism – became only too apparent a decade later when Weimar democracy eventually succumbed to tyranny. Jones is assistant professor in history at University College Dublin. He talks to Georgina Godwin, journalist and Books Editor for Monocle 24.

Laleh Khalili (Sinews of War and Trade) explains how maritime transportation is central to the fabric of global capitalism and how ports create racialised hierarchies of labour, engineer the lived environment, aid the accumulation of capital regionally and globally, and carry forward colonial regimes of profit, law and administration. China is the factory of the world, and a parade of ships arrive and leave in all directions to fuel its manufacturing trade. The oil needed by China primarily comes from the Arabian Peninsula, and much of the material it requires is transported through the ports of Arabian Peninsula. China's ‘maritime silk road’ flanks the Peninsula on all sides. Khalili is a professor of international politics at Queen Mary University of London.

The consultation industry, argue authors Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington, has made its way to the heart of our economies and governments, resulting in everything from getting in the way of our attempts to halt climate change to muddying political accountability. In The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies, they debunk the myth that consultancies always add value to the economy with original research and recommendations for how to make sure the role of consultants works for economies and governments that are fit for purpose.

On Henry Kissinger’s 100th birthday, David Miliband, CEO of the International Rescue Committee and former UK Foreign Secretary, discusses the American century – and whether we’re still living in it. He’ll be in conversation with David Runciman for a special live episode of Runciman’s new podcast Past Present Future, presented in partnership with the London Review of Books.

Europe has always been a haven for people fleeing repression, where freedom of the press, freedom of speech and expression are guaranteed. But is that still true? In 2021, the International Federation of Journalists reported that six journalists had been killed that year and 95 others were in prison in Europe. Why does Europe fail to acknowledge the pressure journalists are under in an increasingly violent climate? How can we support journalists in protecting democracy and freedom? Journalists from across Europe discuss the challenges they face.

The Covid-19 pandemic was a life-changing and terrifying event, with the world engulfed by panic and the search for a vaccine. But in Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations, historian Simon Schama shows how the world has survived similar pandemics before in this new history. Covering smallpox in London, cholera in Paris and plague in India, Schama takes us on a journey of terror, suffering and hope through the eyes of a cast of characters including doctors, patients, scientists and more, centering on Waldemar Haffkine, a gun-toting Jewish student in Odessa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute. Join Schama for a thrilling and inspirational story of people winning in the toughest of times.

Doctors Henry Marsh, author of And Finally: Matters of Life and Death, and Rachel Clarke, author of Breathtaking, have worked in Ukraine during the war, visiting hospitals and helping local doctors treat their patients, and are now setting up a charity. Olesya Khromeychuk is a historian of 20th century East–Central Europe, specialising in Ukrainian history. They talk to Emma Graham-Harrison, the Guardian’s foreign affairs correspondent, about Ukraine and people’s day-to-day ordeal in a time of conflict.

Brown, a ​​Reader in religion and global security at the University of Birmingham and author of Gender, Religion, Extremism, argues that the distinction between victim and perpetrator is always harmful and misplaced in the cases of children raised in terrorist environments, and ultimately damaging to the most vulnerable. Asserting that there is no such thing as a ‘child terrorist’, Brown presents a case for the repatriation, reintegration and rehabilitation of all children currently trapped in Iraq and Syria, and offers solutions for how we can begin to create secure and safe futures for them and for wider society.

Having spent a lifetime studying Europe, Timothy Garton Ash gives his account of a period of unprecedented progress on the continent, calling on citizens to understand and defend what we have collectively achieved in conversation. In conversation with writer and Imperial War Museum rector Misha Glenny, Garton Ash shares vivid experiences from his book Homelands, including his father's memories of D-Day, interviewing Polish dockers, Albanian guerrillas in the mountains of Kosovo, and angry teenagers in the poorest quarters of Paris, as well as advising prime ministers, chancellors and presidents.

Journalist Daniel Finkelstein’s family story is one of miraculous survival against the 20th century’s two genocidal dictators. His grandfather Alfred is now widely acknowledged to have been the first person to recognise the existential danger Hitler posed to the Jews, and with his family was sent to Bergen-Belsen, while his father’s family was sent to do hard labour in a Siberian gulag. In Hitler, Stalin, Mum & Dad, Finkelstein, who serves in the House of Lords, shares his family’s extraordinary, often painful and hellish history through concentration camps, the Gulag, secret archives and freezing wastelands, to eventual happiness and safety. He talks to Philippe Sands, author of East West Street and The Ratline.

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 has had a huge and negative effect on the country’s women; they are banned from secondary and university education, cannot work for non-governmental organisations, and face increasing restrictions on basic freedoms. Film-maker and journalist Tamana Ayazi speaks to the BBC’s chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet about the reality for women in Afghanistan, and what happens next. Ayazi directed the Netflix documentary In her Hands, which narrates the story of Zafira Ghafari and her fight for human rights when the Taliban took over her country.

Writers Tania Branigan and Xiaolu Guo speak to the Guardian and Observer’s senior international affairs correspondent Emma Graham-Harrison about their work, the past and present of China, and the Chinese cultural role in the world. Branigan is a journalist for the Guardian and author of Red Memory: Living, Remembering and Forgetting China’s Cultural Revolution, a book about the people who lived under Mao’s regime and how the Cultural Revolution affects China today. Guo was born in China and her most recent book is the memoir Radical, which she wrote after moving to New York for work, leaving her child and partner in London. The encounter with American culture and people threatened her sense of identity and threw her into a crisis, and Radical is a playful and deeply personal take on carving out a life of her own.

Enjoy a little light ridicule, mockery and fun to start the day as the satirists read the papers and see what’s trending online. An irreverent look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury – today. Strong coffee recommended.

The BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and senior presenter Lyse Doucet speaks about how to keep people engaged and what the media can change to make news matter. Doucet has covered news in countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, and has been on the ground for pivotal moments, including the coalition withdrawal from Afghanistan after the Taliban offensive in the country in 2021, and the war in Ukraine. Doucet has created multiple documentaries over the years, including Children of Syria and Children of the Gaza War. Her lecture is followed by a Q&A with senior international affairs correspondent at the Guardian and Observer Emma Graham-Harrison.

Fleeing war, economic difficulties, the effects of climate change and more, contemporary refugees and migrants get a bad press in the UK, yet society commemorates historic refugees, celebrating their successes and their contributions to all aspects of life. Andrea Hammel explores comparisons between refugees and migrants who arrived at different times during the 20th and 21st century and looks at what we can learn from history about overcoming the challenges our society and the migrants and refugees face. Hammel is reader in the modern languages department and director of the Centre for the Movement of People at Aberystwyth University.

A little light ridicule, mockery and fun to start the day as the satirists read the tabloids and surf the social media storms for an irreverent look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury – today.

A little light ridicule, mockery and fun to start the day as the satirists read the tabloids and surf the social media storms for an irreverent look at what’s tickling the nation’s fancy – and driving it to splenetic fury – today.

What are you scared of? What is the biggest risk to your safety? And how do experiences and worries differ across the world? Sarah Cumbers, director of evidence and insight at Lloyd’s Register Foundation, takes us through the World Risk Poll, which reveals a world of worry changed less by a global pandemic than you might expect, where the countries most exposed to disasters are those least resilient to them, and where discrimination has major consequences for safety.

Ukrainian writers currently experiencing the war in Ukraine first-hand and grappling with its impact, meaning and consequences discuss how you begin to process and write about the devastation conflict brings. Oleksandra Matviichuk is a Ukrainian human rights lawyer who heads the non-profit organization Centre for Civil Liberties that was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize. Halyna Kruk is a poet, fiction writer and scholar of Ukrainian medieval literature, who has authored four books of poetry and collected some of Ukraine’s top awards for young poets. Serhiy Zhadan is a poet, writer, translator and winner of last year’s European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Literature Prize for his novel The Orphanage. They talk to Toby Lichtig, fiction and politics editor of The TLS.

Author and journalist Ben Macintyre tells the astonishing inside story of Colditz, the forbidding Gothic castle on a hilltop in the heart of Nazi Germany where a band of British officers spent the Second World War plotting daring escapes from their German captors. With a remarkable cast of characters, Macintyre uncovers a tale of the indomitable human spirit, but also one of class conflict, homosexuality, espionage, insanity and farce. Macintyre is the author of books including A Spy Among Friends and SAS: Rogue Heroes, is a columnist and associate editor at The Times.