The British empire was built on slavery, but it also pioneered abolition. It spread democracy, but it also seeded geopolitical instability. It devastated nature but it also gave birth to modern notions of environmentalism.

In this urgent sequel to Empireland, award-winning author and journalist Sathnam Sanghera extends his examination of British imperial legacies beyond Britain to the wider world.

Travelling across outposts of the former empire from Barbados and Mauritius to India and Nigeria and beyond, Sanghera puts to bed the conventional balance-sheet view of imperial history where the good is merely weighed up against the bad.

In Empireworld, Sanghera instead seeks out nuance to reveal how contradictory forces of the British empire have shaped our world and what they mean for our place within it today. (Penguin)

Sathnam meets Jack at Pizza Express

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How we live is shaped by how we eat.

You can see this in the vastly different approaches to growing, preparing and eating food around the world, such as the hunter-gatherer Hadza in Tanzania whose sustainable lifestyle is under threat in a crowded planet, or Western societies whose food is farmed or bred in vast intensive enterprises.

And most of us now rely on a complex global food web of production, distribution, consumption and disposal, which is now contending with unprecedented challenges. The need for a better understanding of how we feed ourselves has never been more urgent.

In this wide-ranging and definitive book, philosopher Julian Baggini expertly delves into the best and worst food practises in a huge array of different societies, past and present.

His exploration takes him from cutting-edge technologies, such as new farming methods, cultured meat, GM and astronaut food, to the ethics and health of ultra processed food and aquaculture, as he takes a forensic look at the effectiveness of our food governance, the difficulties of food wastage and the effects of commodification.

Extracting essential principles to guide how we eat in the future, How the World Eats advocates for a pluralistic, humane, resourceful and equitable global food philosophy, so we can build a food system fit for the twenty-first century and beyond. (Philosopher's Synopsis).

On this episode, Julian meets Jack at BOX-E in Bristol

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Post-university life doesn’t suit Phyl. Time passes slowly living back home with her parents, working a zero-hour contract serving Japanese food to holidaymakers at Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

As for her budding plans of becoming a writer, those are going nowhere. That is, until family friend Chris comes to stay. He’s been on the path to uncover a sinister think-tank, founded at Cambridge University in the 1980s, that’s been scheming to push the British government in a more extreme direction. One that’s finally poised to put their plans into action.

But speaking truth to power can be dangerous - and power will stop at nothing to stay on top. As Britain finds itself under the leadership of a new Prime Minister whose tenure will only last for seven weeks, Chris pursues his story to a conference being held deep in the Cotswolds, where events take a sinister turn and a murder enquiry is soon in progress. But will the solution to the mystery lie in contemporary politics, or in a literary enigma that is almost forty years old?

Darting between decades and genres, Jonathan Coe's latest novel THE PROOF OF MY INNOCENCE is a wickedly funny and razor-sharp new novel from one of Britain’s most beloved novelists, showing how the key to understanding the present can often be found in the murkiest corners of the past.

Jonathan's work has received many prizes and awards, including both Costa Novel of the Year and Prix du Livre Européen for Middle England. In France he won the Prix Médicis for The House of Sleep and has been appointed Officier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres. In Italy he has also won the Premio Flaiano (for Number 11) and the Premio Bauer-Ca’ Foscari. The citation for the latter prize concluded that ‘for his keen interest in the most crucial issues of contemporary civilization, Jonathan Coe may be considered a complete novelist and a classic of our times’.

On this episode, Jonathan meets Jack at North Sea Fish in Bloomsbury, London

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