A Turning Point in History? w/ Nabila Ramdani, Ali Ansari, Helen Thompson & Peter Pomerantsev

Professor Helen Thompson and our illustrious panel of historians and current affairs experts examine todays crises – will 2024 be a turning point in history or just another year?

2024: a year that will see more than half the world’s population vote for new leaders; as heat records are shattered on a monthly basis the UN warns that we have just two years left to save the planet; wars are raging in Gaza, Sudan and Ukraine while tensions are at boiling point in many other parts of the world; the uptake of AI continues at pace, promising to disrupt societies; we are also facing the rise of populist right-wing parties and the possible re-election of Donald Trump.

About the book

France—the romanticised, revolutionary land of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity for all—is failing. Reform is urgently needed. This book is a powerful indictment of the status quo, and a highly original perspective on the challenges to which the nation must rise.

Nabila Ramdani is not from the establishment elite: she is a marginalised insider, born and raised in a neglected Paris suburb. With unflinching clarity, she probes the fault lines of her struggling country, exposing the Fifth Republic as an archaic system which emerged from Algeria’s cataclysmic War of Independence.

Today, a monarchical President Macron shows little interest in democracy, while a far-right party founded by Nazi collaborators threatens to replace him. Segregation, institutionalised rioting, economic injustice, the debasement of women, a monolithic education system, deep-seated racial and religious discrimination, paramilitary policing, terrorism and extremism, and a duplicitous foreign policy all fuel the growing crisis.

Yet Ramdani offers real hope: the broken French Republic can, and must, be fixed.

About the author

Nabila Ramdani is a French author of Algerian descent who works as a journalist, academic and broadcaster. Nabila began her award-winning journalistic career in the BBC Paris Bureau. She has since broadcast for outlets including Sky News, Al Jazeera and CNN, and has written extensively for The Guardian, The Daily Mail, The Washington Post and others. Educated at Paris VII University and the London School of Economics (LSE), Nabila has taught at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.