ON THE POD THIS MONTH

FINDING ALBION

ZAKIA SEWELL

First of two extended interviews this month. First up, author and broadcaster Zakia Sewell discussing the journeys and discoveries that make up Finding Albion, her search for another Britain. Born out of her 2020 radio 4 series (My Albion) - it is a rejection of a narrow and exclusionary vision of Englishness in favour of a unifying sense of national identity. 

Centred around the wheel of the year and a pursuit that took Zakia the length and breadth of  our island Finding Albion is as much an exploration of our shared colonial past as it is the weird and wonderful folk customs and traditions that continue to bind our communities together. 

What emerges is a (much needed) hopeful vision of our future and the offer to pursue a deeper sense of who we are.

'Hopeful and Inspiring' - Caroline Lucas

'Finding Albion offers up much-needed alternative national identities and stories for us to keep close and cherish. A timely book' - Jeremy Deller. 

WEIMAR

KATJA HOYER

The ancient town of Weimar looms large in German history; a crucible of democracy and dictatorship and home to Goethe, Liszt, Schiller and Nietzsche. It gave its name to the ambitious Weimar Republic crafted in the aftermath of the First World War. But it was also where fascism took hold. Where Bauhaus architects first experimented with new ways of living, Buchenwald was dug out of a beech forest.

Weimar shows us a town and its people on the edge of catastrophe. drawing on a wealth of new research acclaimed historian Katja Hoyer takes us from 1919 to 1939 as she tells the stories of the men and women who lived through the new republic and Hitler’s regime. An unforgettable picture of lives and choices in extraordinary circumstances, Weimar takes us deep into the heart of the story of a town that dreamt of a better world and woke up to tyranny.

‘Katja Hoyer tracks the everyday acts of omission and concession in the face of ruthless wrong, showing how the compliant and the complacent ultimately undermine the brave.’ - Neil McGregor.