The New Society | culture from the New Statesman

Hot dogs, fireworks, old glory, it’s the 4th July. This year marks the 250th anniversary of the USA’s Declaration of Independence. What led up to these crucial events in 1776? Was the revolution truly American? And what does this anniversary represent today? Tanjil Rashid is joined by Sarah Pearsall, historian and author of Freedom Round the Globe: How the World Made the American Revolution.

Tayari Jones is one of America's most celebrated novelists, twice chosen by Oprah, shortlisted for prizes on both sides of the Atlantic, and read by presidents.Her newest book was meant to be a tale of gentrification in the American South, she found herself an entirely different story. Kin follows two motherless girls coming of age in 1950s Louisiana, the Jim Crow South.It's a novel about female friendship, class, race, and motherhood.Jones discusses her latest book, about growing up "bourgeois and segregated" in Atlanta as the daughter of civil rights activists, and what it's like to watch America try to turn the clock back on progress as it approaches its 250th birthday.

Andrew Marr and the New Statesman's art critic Michael Prodger join Tanjil Rashid to discuss the life and legacy of David Hockney, who passed away last week.A Bradford boy who became one of the most famous artists in the world. A gay man who made desire visible decades before it was safe to do so. A painter who took on the iPhone and the iPad and bent new technology to the oldest of artistic impulses. What do the pools, hedgerows and iPad drawings add up to?

“The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.”Andrea Wulf joins us to discuss her new book The Traveller, about George Forster - the forgotten naturalist who sailed with Captain James Cook at seventeen and came back convinced of something radical: that all human beings are equal. We ask why that idea was so scandalous in the Enlightenment, why Forster has been largely written out of history, and whether travel really does broaden the mind - or whether, as G.K. Chesterton suggested, it might do the opposite.

There is in Britain today a widespread mood of public despair, a deep premonition of imminent national decline. According to Ipsos, just over half of Britons feel worse off since Keir Starmer was elected. Going further back, 60% feel the country has gone backwards since 2022.Are Britain's best days really behind it?Pratinav Anil, Rachel Clarke, Tanjil Rashid, John Kampfner, Gary Stevenson, and Polly Toynbee debate the issue.This debate was chaired by Anoosh Chakelian and recorded at the Cambridge Literary Festival.Find out more here: cambridgeliteraryfestival.com

Political instability, democratic decline, the rise of populist movements - politicians and headlines today are quick to diagnose things as modern day Weimar. But what was Weimar actually like, and how did a city associated with culture and intellectual life become bound up with the rise of Nazism?Historian Katja Hoyer joins us to discuss her new book on Weimar, the process of fascism taking hold at a local level, her previous book Beyond the Wall, and what today’s politics, including the rise of Alternative for Germany, may and may not have in common with the past.

Donald Trump’s political style has often been compared to reality TV - but what if the better comparison is professional wrestling?Satirist Munya Chawawa joins Luke O’Reilly to discuss his new documentary, Wrestling With Trump, which explores the connections between WWE spectacle and modern American politics.Wrestling with Trump is available to stream now on 4.

What makes someone a good spy? And does the fiction writer, in many senses a professional liar, share the traits of a double agent?Novelist and screenwriter William Boyd first explored the theme of espionage in his 2002 novel Any Human Heart and went on to pen a James Bond continuation novel called Solo.His latest trilogy (Gabriel's Moon, The Predicament and Cold Sunset) explores what happens when a travel writer becomes entangled in Cold War Espionage.