Legacy

What does it take to get a room of ex-military festival-goers in rural Wiltshire to agree Britain should return its stolen gold? And why does an obsolete Victorian law still make it a criminal offence for the British Museum to give any of it back? Afua Hirsch just spent a week testing both — with a Buckingham Palace thought experiment, a courtroom-style cross-examination, and a verdict on two centuries of looted treasure that even British Museum members found hard to argue with.
Afua brings Peter inside two sold-out tents at the Chalke Valley History Festival — one on the Ashanti gold Britain still won't return, the other on the German peasants written out of history. Welcome to Legacy Inbox, a new lighter-touch addition to the feed.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

[0:00] Afua's back from Chalke Valley, sold-out crowds and all
[4:10] Barnaby Phillips and a sequel to Loot bring Ashanti gold into the tent
[12:05] A sacked palace, a stolen throne, and a case Afua calls open and shut
[18:55] Her answer to "it's illegal to give it back": test it in court
[21:52] The 2024 loan Britain calls generosity — and Ghana calls something else
[24:00] A blacked-out England XI, and what it says about the British Museum
[25:38] Why a tent full of skeptics left more hopeful than they arrived

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean when the sons of empire become the heroes of the nation that once ruled them? Four years later, what happens when one of those same colonies turns round and beats France on the biggest stage there is? And could two World Cups, played four years and one continent apart, actually tell you where the world's centre of gravity was heading next?

Peter and Afua trace France '98 and the first World Cup ever held in Asia, from Zidane's headed goals to Senegal's shock win over the champions, to ask what football reveals about migration, empire and a shifting world order.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

[0:00] A million people on the Champs-Élysées, and a face that didn't fit the old postcard of France
[2:56] The Republic's beautiful idea, and the empire it was built on
[6:06] Zidane, Thuram, Vieira — the team Le Pen said wasn't really French
[9:53] Ronaldo's mystery fit, hours before the final
[15:05] Iran and the USA, white flowers, and a photograph that stopped the world
[23:14] The World Cup leaves the Atlantic world for the first time in 72 years
[27:26] South Korea's run to the semi-finals, and the making of a soft-power superpower
[34:20] Senegal 1, France 0 — what it meant to beat the empire

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How does a country where football is a minority sport end up hosting — and cashing in on — the biggest World Cup in history? What happens when FIFA stops behaving like a sporting federation and starts behaving like a multinational? And when the tournament generates $14 billion in a single World Cup, who's actually footing the bill?
Twelve global sponsors, three and a half million fans through the turnstiles, and a World Cup final so dull it needed penalties to save it — Peter and Afua follow the money to USA '94.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

[0:00] A World Cup arrives in a country that doesn't even like football
[3:56] João Havelange and the birth of FIFA's global sponsorship machine
[9:54] Nigeria and Saudi Arabia arrive to rewrite the football map
[19:24] The post-communist world gets its own flag on the pitch for the first time
[20:49] Hristo Stoichkov and Gheorghe Hagi become the stars of the tournament
[23:37] Andrés Escobar's own goal, and a tragedy nobody saw coming
[25:47] Brazil finally get the ending football's most-loved nation deserved
[27:00] Why an African team winning the World Cup would change everything

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How does a country only three decades free of colonial rule end up humiliating the reigning world champions in the opening match? What happens when the last World Cup of the Cold War arrives just months after the Berlin Wall comes down? And can football ever really just be a game, when Roger Milla is dancing at a corner flag while an old world order quietly falls apart around him?
Cameroon stun the reigning champions, Gazza cries in the semi-final, and Nessun Dorma becomes the unlikely soundtrack to the end of an era — Peter and Afua go back to Italia '90.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

[0:00] Maradona, a fading empire, and a World Cup arriving as Europe's map redraws itself
[8:11] Cameroon walk out against the champions — and nobody gives them a hope in hell
[9:15] Roger Milla, at 38, becomes the tournament's most unlikely superstar
[17:04] Gary Lineker breaks Cameroonian hearts in the game of the tournament
[24:18] Gazza cries, and England fall for their most fragile genius
[26:40] Maradona, past his best, and the tragedy of peaking too soon
[31:29] Why football still fails the geniuses it creates

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What does it mean to cheer for the country that once colonised yours? Forty years on from the Hand of God, does one match still define how a nation sees itself? And when Ghana play England, who exactly is Afua Hirsch supposed to be supporting? Gary Lineker returns to relive 1986 — the Golden Boot, Maradona, and a quarter-final played four years after the Falklands War — before the conversation turns to something far more personal: identity, belonging, and what it means to wear a nation's shirt.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

[0:54] Part two: Gary Lineker on nation, identity and the beautiful game
[4:05] Forty years since the Golden Boot - and the Hand of God
[6:56] The most famous goal in World Cup history, minutes after the worst
[9:02] Afua wears her Ghana strip - and picks a side
[9:32] What it means when the coloniser plays the colonised
[16:05] Why England's diversity is now part of its story
[20:00] Racism, FIFA and the women's game - coming on Legacy Plus

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.