Sathnam Sanghera Meets Adam Rutherford | How To Academy

Thu, 25 January 2024

6:45 pm - 8:00 pm GMT

Sathnam Sanghera Meets Adam Rutherford

Live In Conversation in London

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Sathnam Sanghera’s ground-breaking Empireland revealed how Empire continues to shape life in Britain today. Now he joins Adam Rutherford to explore its lasting impact on the rest of the globe.

2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire’s influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to nearly 1 in 3 driving on the left side of the road, and even shaping the origins of international law.

Now he returns to How To Academy to tell scientist and broadcaster Adam Rutherford how the British Empire shaped the rest of the world. Sathnam travelled the globe tracing Empire’s international legacies – from Barbados and Mauritius to India and Nigeria and beyond. In this live event, he’ll show us just how deeply British imperialism is baked into our world.

Praise for Sathnam Sanghera’s Empireworld:

“To read Sathnam Sanghera is to understand the world anew. Vanishingly few writers can lay claim to his breadth of talent.”— Elizabeth Day

“A remarkable and important work – one that is finely judged, beautifully written and not just a welcome corrective but a book for our times. This is essential reading.”— Peter Frankopan

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Sathnam Sanghera

Columnist, Novelist, Historian

Sathnam Sanghera was born to Punjabi immigrant parents in Wolverhampton in 1976. He entered the education system unable to speak English but went on to graduate from Christ’s College, Cambridge with a first class degree in English Language and Literature. He has been shortlisted for the Costa Book Awards twice, for his memoir The Boy With The Topknot and his novel Marriage Material. Empireland has been longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non- Fiction, was named a Book of the Year at the National Book Awards of 2022, and inspired both the Channel 4 series Empire State of Mind and Sanghera’s children’s book about the British empire Stolen History. He lives in London.

Adam Rutherford

Geneticist and Science Writer

Adam Rutherford is a geneticist, science writer, and broadcaster. He studied genetics at University College London, and during his PhD on the developing eye, he was part of a team that identified the first known genetic cause of a form of childhood blindness. As well as writing for the science pages of The Guardian, he has written and presented many award-winning series and programs for the BBC as well as multiple books.