#014 - Ed West - Lessons From History: Elites, Populists, and Cultural Amnesia

I have a real treat for you in this episode, dear class mates.

My guest Ed West, author of the insanely and rightly popular Substack the Wrong Side of History, talk about why why cultural elites and the ideas they hold matter, whether we we need 'historical leaders’, why having a shared common cultural narrative is important for social cohesion and individual wellbeing, historic misalignments between rulers and ruled, examples of top-down impositions of cultural change in Britain, multiculturalism, and what Ed means when he writes about 'nice things', how we’ve lost them and our high trust society, why it's ok to want them back, and how it’s possible too (it’s just a case of how much we really want it).

Ed West is a columnist and author of the popular 'Wrong Side of History' Substack. Ed's work has appeared in many of Britain's biggest publications. He is also the author of many books, including Saxons versus Vikings: Alfred The Great, 1215 and all that, 1066 and before all that, and What We Got Wrong About Immigration and How To Set It Right.

You can watch the full show and some highlights below:

How we destroyed our high trust society:

Making history a morality tale:

Until next time, class mates.