Gatay humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. And here's an idea as dangerous as any.

There are principles underpinning Western civilization that we are currently in the process of abandoning.

Neil Ferguson, today's guest, is one of the greats, one of the greatest historians that Britain has ever

produced. He's written 17 books that are in the literary canon, the historical canon of

British education, including one called Civilization, which is all about how civilizations flourish

or fail, and one called Empire, which makes the now

almost inconceivably controversial case that the British Empire on balance was a good thing.

Neil has lately cropped up in my social media feeds as sort of a voice on the kind of

sub-stacky, podcasty, heterodox sort of

centre-right talking about how the West has lost its way. But he's a much, much deeper and more

rigorous intellectual and academic than that. And I wanted to go a bit deeper than many of his other appearances

have and get our hands dirty talking about civilizations, the British Empire, where we are today

and where he thinks we shall be. We sat down in Westminster, in London, on the afternoon of the

American presidential election. We didn't yet know

that Donald Trump was going to beat Kamala Harris. So forgive any ignorance on our part if we speak

in roundabout ways about the coming future of American democracy. But it's a fascinating

conversation nonetheless and even more salient now that we do know

there will be a Trump administration number two.

Please enjoy as much as I did, the one, the only, Neil Ferguson.

Exactly.

Well, thanks for making time for us.

We've just eaten a crab sandwich to the listener, if they're not aware, which was delightful.

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