Origin Story

Origin Story is a podcast I created with Ian Dunt in May 2022. In each episode we take a word, idea or figure from history, explore its origins and talk about how it influences political discourse today.

In the first five seasons (plus bonus episodes) we have covered such topics as culture war, neoliberalism, freedom of speech, eugenics, climate change denial, anti-vaxxers, Zionism, gaslighting, the war on drugs, the Illuminati and the politics of zombies, and profiled the likes of Winston Churchill, Ayn Rand, George Orwell and Elon Musk. The archive of episodes is available on Apple, Spotify, Patreon or wherever you get your podcasts.

We have now expanded three topics - fascism, centrism and conspiracy theory - into books that aim to be both useful introductions and compelling stories, following the evolution of these ideas from their origins to the present day and tackling some of the big questions that they inspire. Designed to be an accessible antidote to simplification and misinformation, they are published on 17 October to coincide with the launch of season six.